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Medical students and junior doctors face continuing uncertainty about their future employment prospects, as the furore over the doctor recruitment system continues to escalate.

Jim Johnson, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) has been forced to resign after comments he made in a letter to the Times further outraged students and doctors.

In the letter he supported reforming, rather than completely abolishing the Medical Training Application Service, the online recruitment system which has proved so inadequate in recent weeks.

This incensed many members of the BMA and thousands of whom have struggled to apply for jobs after university. The system was found to be poorly designed and suffered numerous faults and some security breaches.

Mr Johnson told Channel 4 news: "I am having to resign because I have lost the confidence of a very large number of members of the BMA council.

"But this is no ordinary political situation. The medical profession is on the edge."

Last week Patricia Hewitt, health secretary, performed a U-turn in her defence of the system and revealed that after the first round of recruitment interviews it would only fulfil a monitoring role this year.

Ms Hewitt is also facing calls to resign in the face of protests, demonstrations and widespread dissatisfaction among those trying to gain employment within the medical community.