Leading medical figures yesterday expressed deep concerns about the new junior doctors recruitment programme as time runs out before the posts are filled.

Leading medical figures yesterday expressed deep concerns about the new junior doctors recruitment programme as time runs out before the posts are filled.

Professor Charles Warlow, professor of medical neurology at the Western General in Edinburgh, said: "I encouraged our two extremely bright young doctors not to apply for (the online scheme) MTAS, to get out of it."

High-flying trainees from his unit are now off to top departments in Australia and New Zealand, with Professor Warlow saying he would be "incandescent" if their experience from working abroad does not count and allow them to re-enter the Scottish training programme in future.

"I cannot believe that as a country we would be daft enough to have such a stupid system to ignore really, really talented young people," he said. "We would never do that I hope."

Dr Tom Brown, chair of the Scottish division of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said he was concerned about the number of capable doctors working in the field in Scotland who had not secured new positions.

He believes when jobs were offered in Scotland ahead of England, more English candidates than expected accepted offers, because of all the uncertainty. The Royal College is recommending a "swap shop" which allows people to exchange positions they have taken in parts of the country where they do not particularly want to live.

There are other fields such as surgery where there were even worse problems, according to Dr Brown.

Dr Graeme Eunson, chairman of the BMA Scottish Junior Doctors Committee, said: "We need to know very soon what package is going to be in place to support junior doctors who find themselves potentially unemployed on August 1. It is only weeks before many of these people will be joining the dole queue. I am sure the Scottish Executive has something organised behind the scenes something in the public arena would be more reassuring."

Katy McNab has been working towards her career in medicine since she was 15 but, more than 10 years on, she is facing unemployment.

She is currently training as a psychiatrist in Paisley and was willing to move anywhere in Scotland to pursue that ambition.

However, the 26-year-old has yet to secure a job and she says five out of the eight senior house officers at her hospital are in the same situation. Her peers in other fields report similar stories.

Mrs McNab describes one friend who applied for four different medical fields and got no job offers, and another well advanced in obstetrics and gynaecology who may have to leave Scotland.

"In my heart I do not want to move abroad, I have got family and friends here," she said. "But I feel your hand is being forced to do something like that to continue the career you have worked hard towards, which you have given a lot of evenings and weekends and a lot of emotional time. It is difficult to just walk away from it."

She has registered with a locum agency but notes: "I am worried there are so many people unemployed there will not be any work."

Her husband, a lecturer at Stow College, is also facing redundancy.

Mrs McNab's father Bill Waddell, a former headteacher of Bishopbriggs High School north of Glasgow, said: "We have got a situation where between them they are dripping in degrees and the country has no jobs for them."

The system that doesn't work

• Under the old regime, junior doctors who had completed their first years in hospital after university became consultants by applying for posts with different hospitals, gradually progressing up the ranks. Most agree this career path had its faults - it was too slow and had a "who-you-know" element - and so there has been a major overhaul.

• From August, doctors will become specialists by joining posts in training programmes that last several years, taking juniors from the entry point though to final qualification. The application process has been centralised, with candidates competing for positions across Scotland through one gateway. Trainees from across the UK, Europe, and beyond have been knocking at the door.

• Selection should have been managed through a UK-wide on-line applications service called MTAS.

However, following system crashes and a crisis of confidence in whether the right candidates were being shortlisted, it has been abandoned.

Dr Mike Watson, director of medicine for NHS Education for Scotland (NES), which is managing the process, said: "We are having to run with a manual system of spreadsheets, phone calls, and e-mails, which is why it is taking a long time."

• The core Scottish training programme has 1539 vacancies. Already, some 94% have been filled, with 455 going to candidates with addresses outside Scotland. Around 310 people currently working in Scotland have accepted posts in England.

• In addition, there are 569 one-year contracts for junior doctors in Scotland. These are less popular, but officials insist they will count towards qualification.

• Just how many doctors currently holding jobs in Scotland will miss out on either a core or one-year post is far from clear. NES is currently handling a highly complex clearing system. When a core training post is rejected, it is then offered to the next applicant in line, who may accept, in turn creating a vacancy in a different geographical location or a one-year contract post.

• Yesterday afternoon, around 1000 people who ticked Scotland as the place they most wanted to work did not have a job offer here. There were a total of 400 vacancies left, all of which had been offered at least twice and replies were awaited from up to 350 candidates. Some parts of Scotland, such as the north and the south-east, as well as some specialities, have more gaps. Job swap shops are being promised to allow people to exchange comparable positions in different parts of the country.

• Dr Watson said: "We have to fill the posts in Scotland to make sure the health service runs on August 1. We will make sure the service runs on August 1. Discussions are under way about what support will be given to doctors committed to Scotland who emerge from the process unemployed."