On the eve of the march tomorrow, Elizabeth Paice, dean director at the London postgraduate medical deanery and chair of Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans, has defended the new system for appointing doctors to training posts.

But she says she wants to see improvements in the MTAS computer system to make it easier for consultants who are doing the shortlisting to use, and to enable students to see how their application is progressing.

Professor Paice told the BMJ that, despite the protests, panels were going ahead with the interviews, which were going ‘pretty well’.

“We’ve been interviewing since 28 February,