It ain't weird mate. That's the norm.
My colleague who is the same grade that I am still drives a banged-up 16 year old corsa
Junior Doctors Strikes
- Thread starter Dr House
- Start date
My colleague who is the same grade that I am still drives a banged-up 16 year old corsa
I have just one question: how much debt would they have if they studied elsewhere?
Caporegime
Unless you're talking about America - less. Basically none for most First World countries.
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Commissario
and they have funny looking kids as well!Radiologist are all weirdAll that sitting in the dark.
Soldato
DOI I'm a locum/out of hours GP.
I'm absolutely 100% behind the strikes. The job for doctors in training has changed beyond recognition in the last 15 years since I graduated and was an Foundation Year 1 Doctor. In the late 2000's we still had training opportunities on the wards, learning proper medicine, mucking into clinics, surgery, ward based teaching and felt that we could deliver good quality care to patients. Things now are totally unrecognisable in both primary and secondary care. As someone quite rightly put it in a comment it's firefighting and battlefield medicine, the level of care you want to provide can not be met. Everything is triage mentality. Compound this with a nearly 30% real terms pay cut, 100 grand debt, student loans payments till 60, rising retirement age, increasing pension contributions, worse pension, ever worsening training opportunities and you have a career that just isn't worth going into in the UK.
Morale is rock bottom. The highest ever numbers of doctors are leaving after completing their 2nd year to head abroad, become locums or even leave the profession completely. The erosion in morale, quality of training, pay, reputation is not an accident by those in charge. Striking is essential for doctors to be get their worth both financially and fight for all those others above. Doctors offer incredible value for money, you have someone who is expert I risk management, prescribing, investigating, triaging in an ever complicated field. Yes you can hire a specialist nurse for about 20% less than a senior registar but they can do one job and one job only. For me, the pay for doctors in training is the first and foremost issue that need rectifying with nothing short of full restoration but training, workload, admin burden needs to sorting too. The 2016 strikes were a damp squid and I'd support my colleagues in going further if necessary.
I'm absolutely 100% behind the strikes. The job for doctors in training has changed beyond recognition in the last 15 years since I graduated and was an Foundation Year 1 Doctor. In the late 2000's we still had training opportunities on the wards, learning proper medicine, mucking into clinics, surgery, ward based teaching and felt that we could deliver good quality care to patients. Things now are totally unrecognisable in both primary and secondary care. As someone quite rightly put it in a comment it's firefighting and battlefield medicine, the level of care you want to provide can not be met. Everything is triage mentality. Compound this with a nearly 30% real terms pay cut, 100 grand debt, student loans payments till 60, rising retirement age, increasing pension contributions, worse pension, ever worsening training opportunities and you have a career that just isn't worth going into in the UK.
Morale is rock bottom. The highest ever numbers of doctors are leaving after completing their 2nd year to head abroad, become locums or even leave the profession completely. The erosion in morale, quality of training, pay, reputation is not an accident by those in charge. Striking is essential for doctors to be get their worth both financially and fight for all those others above. Doctors offer incredible value for money, you have someone who is expert I risk management, prescribing, investigating, triaging in an ever complicated field. Yes you can hire a specialist nurse for about 20% less than a senior registar but they can do one job and one job only. For me, the pay for doctors in training is the first and foremost issue that need rectifying with nothing short of full restoration but training, workload, admin burden needs to sorting too. The 2016 strikes were a damp squid and I'd support my colleagues in going further if necessary.
Caporegime
Couldn't agree more. We must have qualified almost the same time too.
Soldato
If not in a substantive post might be a good experience too. My wife and I (also GP) are looking a options abroad (likely Canada) but seening £20K a month for GPs in the Middle East is tempting me, even possibly a 3 month stint to test it out.
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Soldato
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Everybody above the average wage in UK says they're comfortable lol It's all relative as long as you're not **** with money and spending it all
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Soldato
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I can tell you that ambulance response times in Wales have fallen (again) to historic lows in the last month. Around 40% of Red calls arrive at scene within 8 minutes. The target is 65%.
Turning this around is going to take years.
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Caporegime
There's no real intention to turn it around currently I don't think. This is the inevitable consequence of years of under investment and running the health service on the verge of collapse constantly.
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Soldato
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I can't disagree.
Decades of poor planning and under investment is bearing bitter fruit.
Without a huge investment in education, I just don't see how recruitment can improve. At best that's a 5-10 year programme. And, as we know, governments think solely in electoral cycles.
My medical school debt is £81k at the moment and increasing faster than I pay it off.
If I was Scottish at a Scottish medical school, it would be £0
every 10 minutes!
Soldato
Not 8 years though. It's a minimum 5 year medical degree, probably a 1 year undergraduate intercalation then your 7-8 years of Foundation and Specialist training. Another year or 2 being a clinical fellow or doing a research project in order to get a consult job. So more like minimum of 14 years assuming you progress at every single point and get into your preferred job bearing in mind competition ratios are sometimes 30 to 1.
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Caporegime
So age 32 set for life on a consultant position top of your field. Is this meant to be a negative?
The whole world wants your expertise.
This is like Schrödinger's doctor, there's simply not enough but on the other side there's way too many to make it to the top
Stop voting conservative.
Stop voting labour
The whole world wants your expertise.
This is like Schrödinger's doctor, there's simply not enough but on the other side there's way too many to make it to the top
Stop voting conservative.
Stop voting labour
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Soldato
The reality is it's not as fast as that unfortunately. Those are absolutely bare minimums and extremely unlikely. I don't know many who who have achieved that in their 30's. The vast majority will be in their 40's by the time they get a consultant job, if ever. There just aren't enough consultant or specialist training jobs all the way down the ladder. People are spending years extra doing research, PHDs, fellowships to give themselves a chance. Primary care is the exception, much quicker training but often they'll come from another speciality such as medicine or surgery. All this whilst being moved around the county when your 20's and 30's, trying to settle down in life, managing relationships, young family etc. If it were so easy we wouldn't be seeing the doctors in training leaving the UK or profession.
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You need to pay an employee a fair wage for the service they provide now, not throttle their wage because they may or may not earn more in the future.
A nurse starts at band 5, if they do further training, courses, a master's, and professional exams they can progress just as doctors do.
its just most nurses choose not to push them self so hard and strop at band 7.
As you can see there is scope for progression:
Agenda for change - pay rates
Band 1 (Please note that following the 2018 pay deal, band 1 closed to new entrants from 1 December 2018). £23,615 Examples of roles at band 1 - domestic support worker, housekeeping assistant, driver and nursery assistant. Band 2 < 2 years' experience £23,615 2+ years £23,615 Examples of roles...
A PA is paid at band 7, they see a patient in ED and then they have to come to me and discuses their patient, I make the plan, I prescribes the medications, I take responsibility for the patient as I am the senior decision maker. Now why should the PA be paid more than me per hour?
Im not saying the PA is over paid, they get a fair wage but a ST5 doctor is way under paid for the level of training, responsibility and education we have.
Consultants start on 88k,
Find me a job that does not pay a 100k that requires
Some of the brightest most educated students
Masters + undergrad
a further 10 years of training
being moved all over the country
shift work (which is unusual for white-collar work)
and a further 9 years as a consultant after the 10 years to get there to make it to £100k.
People done go into medicine for the money but they dont go into the career to be taken advantage off which is what is happening.