British medical chief steps down

The chairman of the British Medical Association resigned in the wake of his opposition to scrapping an online recruitment system for junior doctors.

Dr. James Johnson sparked a furor when he wrote a letter to London's The Times newspaper calling for reforming the Medical Training Application Service thatcritics say has poorly designed forms, recruitment processes and security breaches, the newspaper reported.

Its Web site, Times Online, received more than 490 critical responses to Johnson's letter appearing last week, many of them calling on the medical association chief to step down.

Johnson, a surgeon, told The Times he had planned to give up his office at the annual meeting in Torquay next month.

His resignation is the third prompted by the dispute over the application service and its problems.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

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