Training doctors

SIR – Our medical and surgical colleges, together with the Government, must urgently address the loss of 50 per cent of doctors from the NHS after the first two years of training, as detailed in an NHS report last year.

There seems little point in welcoming the news that there will be 500 more places for medical students next year until there is some guarantee that these extra doctors will stay and practise medicine within our NHS.

It is also high time for better selection procedures, designed to identify all-round candidates who are genuinely motivated to pursue careers in medicine and surgery, and not based purely on academic prowess and tick-box applications. John Dinley FRCS

Broadstone, Dorset