The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin had protested at the actions of then Health secretary, Particia Hewitt, who had advised that international medical graduates should only be considered for training positions if domestic candidates were not available.

Questioned upon the grounds of discrimination it has be upheld with implications for over 8000 international medical graduates presently on training programs within the UK.  These will now be allowed to remain on programs in the UK.  In addition, it will be many domestic medical graduates may now find it comparably difficult to find a position in the face of competition from abroad.

The current 8000 had been generated through the UK highly skilled migrant program which will now be toned down, although this will occur gradually in the coming years.

It’s a common recurring theme for pharmaceutical companies.  ” They are big rich companies making huge profits and using medical sales people to persuade doctors to prescribe expensive medicines”.  The agency is basing it’s claims on research which confirms that medical sales people are promoting more expensive and newer drugs instead of older ones which may be more effective.

This latest ‘medical sales bashing’ exercise seems to lack any understanding of the integral role of the medical sales team in the medical progress which has lead to so many lives being saved and improved by medicines in the world.   today.

A pharmaceutical company denied the opportunity to make a profit is no good to any of us.  Without profits they will cease to be able to  invest in R & D, and indeed would not have any motive to chase new medical discoveries.

This latest agency has been told to ’stick to assessing washing machines’, maybe the medical sales companies have a good point!

With more and more institutions assuming university status more and more young people are entering the seacrh for employment as graduates.  There are now some 10.1 million graduates in the Uk and according to the latest figures from the CBI there are only 9 million graduate jobs.

The CBI were also critical of the skills and abilities of new graduates claiming that many simply don’t have the communication skills to do many graduate job that are out there.  The figures mean that there are over 1 million graduates out there who aren’t in graduate jobs, many of them performing roles for which they are over qualified.  the CBI think that that the gap between graduates and available graduate jobs is only likely to widen meaning the government may have to think it’s policy on higher education in the coming years.

Nurse advisor jobs will require all manor of encounters with ‘blood and guts’ amongst other things.  However, the re introduction of maggots for woundcare may create a need for a new type of nurse advisor specialising on treatments with maggots.

Maggots had been used for 100s of years due to their ability to eat and clean up dead or infected flesh whilst not touching good flesh.  It now appears that after all this time developing dressings that maggots may be as or more effective.  So much so that ZooBiotic have now become a world market leader in the provision of maggot treatments with 4000 clients active in the UK.  they have created nurse advisor jobs to deliver this treatment in the community and now produce more than 600, 000 maggots per month!

It may be a great opportunity for nurses to get into an up and coming area, although there may be some for which it is a step too far!”

One might expect that graduates of all people should be more satisfied with their lot having been one of the minority to be educated to a higher level and gaining a better job.  However, research by recruitment firm kelly services has shown that nearly half feel they are in totally the wrong graduate careers.

If this is the case, why not just change direction?  Well I guess the degree of committment which has been given to a particular discipline makes it very difficult to walk away from this when it comes time to settle into an occupation.  Guess the extreme example of this is a Doctor.  Most Doctors are stuck with a medical career for life from a decision made at 18 to do medicine.  It would be very difficult to invest 7 years training for medicine, only to decide at the end of it you’d rather be an engineer.   They same is perhaps true of many graduate careers.  The decision is sealed at a young age with the choice of subjects and degree, it then becomes difficult to change tack half way through.

All of this said, YouGov have shown that one in four in the British work place are unhappy, so perhaps it’s not a graduate thing after all!

New research by international group Antal has shown that demand for managerial positions overseas is higher than ever.  They approached over 1500 companies across 14 countries to ask whether they would be hiring or firing in the next 3 months.  You could be forgiven for predicting a poor result given the state of the global economy and also judging by the effects on recruitment agencies in the UK of late.

The results did in fact confirm the UK as having one of the lowest figures within only 31% of companies planning on hiring staff in the next 3 months compared with figures around eastern Europe as high as 93% in Poland with China also showing figures over 90% expected for the next 3 months.

Recruitment agencies in the UK were at lest optimistic that figures would soon improve once companies have assumed a more manageable size, they will still have a turnover of staff.  An indeed if the economy does bounce back then demand will be restored again.

The car manufacturer which currently employs some 16000 people in the West Midlands and Merseyside is planning to develop new technology for emissions.  In a climate where anything green appears to be a winner if offers an excellent opportunity for graduates to develop skills in an arena which will only become more and more useful in coming years.

The graduate jobs climate in the UK has been as miserable as the weather itself recently with many companies axing recruitment schemes for graduate jobs in the UK.  this news will at least offer some hope to new graduates looking to start out in their careers in the new few months.  The new scheme will begin in September 2008.  Jaguars HR Director feels the role will offer a superb chance for new graduates to develop a career at the ‘cutting edge’ with excellent rewards and benefits.

Although adverts direct to consumers did produce an immediate spike in pharmaceutical sales it appeared to be short lived and sales quickly returned back to their previous levels.  There always was an assumption that in a private market place consumers would exercise their choice.  However, this new research adds credibility to the suggestions that consumers would rather go with the advice of a specialist that make decisions themselves.

It’s staggering news for shareholders of US pharma companies who have seen $5bn per year spent on advertising direct to consumers, only to now read results suggesting pharmaceutical sales may not have benefited.

The conclusion of the research was that the most effective route to increase pharmaceutical sales was medical rep promotion.

While most recruitment agencies are feeling the pinch, a number of HR recruitment agencies are enjoying the present events in the recruitment industry and indeed outside.  Firms everywhere are feeling the credit crunch and having to lay off staff and restructure.  One side effect of this is an increased demand for HR staff.

HR recruitment agency Joslin Rowe has reported a number of changes since the credit crunch set in apart from just increased demand.  They also point out that average salaries are rising sharply thereby increasing fees.  As a final benefit the recruitment process appears to have shortened with the average time from vacancy arriving to filling falling to two weeks, reducing the number of processes lost due to the extended timescales over which they can occur.

In the last 2 years there have been large losses of medical sales jobs in the UK with some of the larger pharmaceutical companies having had tow or even three restructures in as many years.  In the past medical sales jobs were always seen as a highly secure career move.  Now, this has become a questionable assumption as medical sales companies are implemeting job cuts everywhere.

The industry has itself to blame in part through an artificial hike in staff numbers throughout the 90s.  Companies began to employ large numbers of staff into medical sales jobs, up to 8 per territory to generate mass noise to sell product, a loss leading activity.  What followed was fierce competition to match each others share of voice resulting in gross inflated numbers of sales people.  Now, the industry is having to return to more realistic numbers.

In addition, economic issues have prompted the government to squeeze the pharma industry from all sides meaning they have had to cut costs to maintain profits.  Unfortunately one of the biggest costs to any employer is it’s staff, so job cuts are an obvious place to start.