Sir, - Like several thousand other Leaving Cert. students I put down medicine as the first choice on my CAO form in February. The medical courses in the various universities tend to have very high points requirements, as we well know, because of the law of supply and demand - many applicants for few places means high cost (in terms of points). This shows that despite the terrible conditions that we would-be medics know we will have to endure as junior doctors, a huge number of us still genuinely want to give it a try.
Reading Dr Toddy Daly's letter (April 5th) brought something home to me. Every few weeks there is a similar letter to be seen in The Irish Times, rightly complaining about the 100-hour working week. But never have I seen any letter in response, from any member of the Medical Council or from any suitably expert politician, defending the current system! Why, exactly, is it that junior doctors must put their patients' lives on the line? Do we not have enough eager, well-educated young people to swell the medical ranks and reduce the ridiculous pressure put on the doctors?
Is the status quo simply indefensible? Or do the authorities consider making any such defence as being beneath them? If nothing else, surely the enthusiastic doctors of the future deserve some explanation. - Yours, etc., Brian Hayes,
Wasdale Grove, Terenure, Dublin 6.