Response to: The interpretability of doctor identification badges in UK hospitals: a survey of nurses and patients' by Hickerton et al

We read with interest the study by Hickerton et al1 highlighting the considerable confusion with terminology for junior doctors’ titles following the implementation of Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) in the UK. The findings of Hickerton et al1 echo the conclusions of our own research into this topic in 2010.2 We studied nurses’ ability to identify doctors' titles and match post-MMC titles, such as Fy1, Fy2, ST3, ST7, with their equivalent traditional title—house officer, senior house officer, junior registrar, senior registrar. Our study demonstrated variability in the ability of nursing staff to correctly match post-MMC doctors’ titles with more traditional appellations. We found no statistically significant relationship between demographic characteristics and duration of practice with ability to correctly identify titles. Nursing staff caring for inpatients, however, correctly matched more titles than those working in outpatient clinics and operating theatres. This variance was statistically...
Source: Quality and Safety in Health Care - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Correspondence Source Type: research