Scores of trainee consultants are stuck without jobs because of the NHS's financial crisis, Britain's most senior surgeon warns today. The £1bn deficit means hospital trusts cannot afford to employ surgeons who have passed their consultant exams and are conducting a "vacancy freeze", says the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Bernard Ribeiro.

As a result, 37 cardiothoracic surgeons, 12 neurosurgeons and 35 ear, nose and throat specialists (ENT) are facing unemployment and having to consider retraining - at a huge cost to the taxpayer. It costs £237,000 just to get a student through medical school. They then need 10-12 years' training to consultant level. "Trusts are not employing new surgeons because simply the money is not there. The net result is that there are 37 cardiac surgeons who are qualified to be consultants who have not got a job; 12 neurosurgeons; and in ENT, 35 specialists who have no jobs in the UK. All have their certificate, all are available for a job - and there are no jobs for them" he said.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Mr Ribeiro also warned that the vacancy freeze was having a knock-on effect on junior doctors' training. Two thousand junior surgeons are waiting to move into higher surgical training but are unable to do so because the registrars above them are unable to become consultants.

Hundreds more junior doctors risk being shunted into a career cul-de-sac because of changes to doctors' training, further details of which will be announced today by the Department of Health.

Under the reforms, to be introduced in August 2007, the old system of a six-year training scheme will be replaced by a five-year specialist training programme which will allow junior doctors to become consultants in just seven years.

Doctors trained under the old system who have not gained an old-style training post by the time the scheme runs out have been told they will be able to enter the new scheme - perhaps at a higher point - but they face fierce competition.

They risked being "stuck" in stand-alone posts that do not count towards consultant training, and it was "disingenuous" of the government to suggest they would be able to swap into the new training scheme at a later date. Mr Ribeiro, a consultant urologist at Basildon hospital, Essex, said: "Theoretically what's going to happen to them is they're going to be asked to review their career prospects: are you sure you want to be a surgeon? Then they're going to be told: there are no opportunities for you in training. Have you considered ... progressing your career through the service grades, where there may be opportunities for you later on to transfer over to training?

"I think we were sold a bit of a lie that there would be free transgression of trainees moving across from one side to another. In reality, once you get into training, you're not going to opt out and allow somebody else to take your place for a while. I mean, let's be realistic. There will be opportunities for trainees in the training ladder perhaps to take a year overseas to enhance their training ... but to sort of imply that that would allow somebody to come in and do the whole of their training and then move on is I think a bit disingenuous." The RCS president warned of a "brain drain" of surgeons unable to find employment fleeing to Australia, Canada or the US, as they did in the 1960s.

He voiced concern about the new training, called Modernising Medical Careers, which will offer far more specialised training coupled with far fewer hours' experience. "Experience is the one issue that's going to be a problem" he said. The European working time directive, which will mean doctors can work only 48 hours a week by 2009, will also lead to less experienced doctors.

Mr Ribeiro - who will appear before MPs on the health select committee later this month to discuss workforce numbers - added that he had asked the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, for an extra 1,000 training posts over three years to stave off the risk of unemployment. But while he was "confident" she would offer some, even an additional 200 a year would be "a drop in the ocean."