Well all the nhs problems are down to women apparently

[louloutheshamed]

Dm link coming up....

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2532461/Why-having-women-doctors-hurting-NHS-A-provovcative-powerful-argument-leading-surgeon.html

Especially those pesky intelligent women who train for years at the taxpayers expense and then become gps, have children and go part time.

What gives me rage about this is the way it is presented ther women have children by some form of immaculate conception or that asexual reproduction that plants do, not that women have children with men who actually need to step up to their child care responsibilities so that 'woman going part time after children' is not the default automatic option.

[PenguinsDontEatStollen]

Didn't actually read it as the brief scan got me angry enough.

The male doctors have children too in just as many (if not more) cases. The difference is that they mostly pass the burden of adjusting life for these children onto their female partners.

The solution isn't blaming women, it's making it more normal that both partners adjust their working pattern.

[wem]

Ack. I didn't get beyond the second sentence which is basically - "I'm not sexist but... ....Some of my best friends are women... ...Feminism's gone too far..."

Will try again.

[wem]

It is one long attack on lazy, unambitious, poor-value female doctors. He doesn't even attempt to think about the reasons for their choices, beyond the fact that some of them might be married to other doctors and therefore obviously come second to their husbands.

He takes the fact that female medical students are already planning to go part-time as proof of their fecklessness, rather than the overwhelming cultural expectation that women sacrifice their careers for their family.

He says "How do we persuade female doctors to ‘lean in’? It is a question we urgently need to address", without a single useful suggestion. Clueless.

[wonderstuff]

WhT on earth is wrong with part time and surely the issue is why aren't more men working part time?

Not going to open the link, it only encourages them

[CustardoPaidforIDSsYFronts]

not opening the link

because the daily mail are fuckers of the highest order

[wem]

I like this too:
But in general practice, part-time working and job-sharing have an effect on patients.

They can deprive them of continuity of care, which is the service they most value. That once key value of the NHS — the cradle-to-grave relationship with patients — has become a thing of the past.

As if in the good old days the same (male) doctor would be with you from birth to death!

[Quangle]

I don't understand this. It's not as if they are paid full time for a part time job so they are not doing less than they are paid for. And agree that the real issue is why men don't take on responsibility as parents as women do. Oh and have never had any continuity of care among any of the three or four male gps I see at my surgery so it makes no difference to me.

[ArtetasSwollenAnkle]

According to official figures, the DM readership has a female majority;

mailclassified.co.uk/uploads/files/CLASSIFIED-FACT-SHEET-DM-TMoS-Jan-Dec-2012.pdf

What do they publish that appeals to women so much?

[lemonmuffin]

lots of women agree with their opinions. That's why its a best selling newspaper with a majority female readership.

[CaptChaos]

That once key value of the NHS — the cradle-to-grave relationship with patients — has become a thing of the past.

Not sure where he dreamed this nugget up from. The NHS was set up as a cradle to grave service, but I am unsure where it says that that service was to be offered by a single GP. The only time I've ever known it to happen is in the private sector or before GP services became centralised and you had tiny village surgeries passing from father to son (so probably also before 1948 in a lot of cases).

He is basically blaming women for having those immaculately conceived children and then not wanting to employ a full time nanny to bring them up, because no man could want to have a hand in that now, could he?

Artetas - What do they publish that appeals to women so much?

God and all His pixies alone know because it's wall to wall misogynistic shite, however, there is hope for the future. The vast majority of the readership is also over 45, so, with luck, as that age group grows old and eventually dies, the readership numbers will sink. This gives me great hope that in about another 45 years, the DM won't be peddling it's vile hate speech against any of the groups it enjoys vilifying anymore. Always a silver lining if one looks for one!

[RedToothBrush]

He says this:
For my part, I believe medical school places should be given to those most likely to repay their debt to society.

Well, isn't having children and contributing a female perspective to healthcare (which maybe includes the pressures of having children and working going on maternity leave and going back to work) included in that little definition.

But he's not sexist. No. Not at all.

Think that fucks any other argument he might have in one fell swoop.

I'm sure this is old news anyway, and this view has been expressed a couple of times in a number of places and treated in the same way every time.

As a lot of bollocks.

[NiceTabard]

I only skimmed it.

He appears to be saying that women should not be allowed to train as doctors unless they undertake to never have children or to continue working full time after they have them. Righty-ho then. I like the way he starts out "I am a feminist" and then basically says that women shouldn't work as doctors as they are taking away opportunities from men

Not sure about the "good old days" stuff. In the "good old days" female doctors had to give up work on marrying, or having children. There weren't very many of them then, but surely that represented worse "value for money", not better

[Catypillar]

Can't read it as I have the lovely Tea And Kittens DM blocker (highly recommended) on this computer- aaahhh...

Saw enough on Twitter though. DM bingo it seems- both anti-working women (or just anti-women) AND anti-doctor/NHS. Tell me, those of you who had the peril of reading it, do they also complain that the lady doctors are too fat, or show too much cleavage (with pics to show just how bad it is)?

I know several male doctors who work part time because of their children, and plenty doctors of both genders who do less than ten sessions/week for no reason other than that's what they want to do- if you work hard and get paid enough per session that you can afford to have a day off during the week then why not?

What about all the female nurses who work part time? Is that not equally disgraceful- surely we need continuity of care from nurses as well? Cancer is a great concern to the DM- should Macmillan nurses be allowed to work part time?

I work full time because that's what works for us- DH stays at home with DS- and don't see my contribution to the NHS being any better than my part time colleagues (most of whom end up working far more hours than they're paid for)

[Lancelottie]

i don't think any of the GPs at our local practice are full-time. One (male) is semi-retired, two (male) spend half their week doing private work, another (female) is part-time because of childcare.

i take it the DM is only worried about the one who is doing unpaid work elsewhere?

[scallopsrgreat]

Saw this yesterday. Awful article. Truly dreadful. No analysis of systems or structures within the workplace. Women's choices appear to happen in a vacuum and an overriding assumption that the way the workplace works now is the way it should continue to work i.e. the default is still man with no childcare responsibilities

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

aaaaagh! I agree with all posters above. I suppose it demonstrates why one shouldn't read the Daily Mail, and/or that the article is deliberately intended to be provocative.

[TheDoctrineOf2014]

Don't lots of doctors do part NHS and part private work? Is he complaining about them as well? All the ones I've met doing that are, err, male.

[NiceTabard]

Yes they do

No they aren't

Time spent earning £££ privately, or on the golf course, is an important and valuable use of male doctors time, and a suitable use of their training.

[lemonmuffin]

the female GP's ive been to have all been very good.

but when i try to make a follow up appt, its almost impossible. They are always on sick leave/maternity leave/part time and hardly ever there.

So continuity of care does not happen and you have to explain your symptoms all over again to a brand new gp.

Just doesnt work.

[MissBurrows]

What a crock of....

[PenguinsDontEatKale]

Also, your problems, if gendered, are a reason for more equality and not fewer female doctors.

[Blistory]

He's missed the point entirely. There is no point in educating any woman if they are going to breed, not just those who want to play at being doctors for a while.

Maybe women should have to sign an IOU if they want to attend any educational establishment after the age of 16 so that they have to repay the costs of their education if they then just throw it away to breed.

In fact, why don't we just get rid of women who can't breed as that would stop them taking jobs from honest, decent hard working men.

What really scares me is that attitudes like his exist and they always fall short of making the comments I've just made but its what they really think about the cost/ benefit of educating women and what they really think of the value of women to society.

[KerryKatonasKhakis]

I actually prefer to see different GPs. They look at you with fresh eyes each time, have no preconceptions and you won't be stuck with one who you don't like.

I just can't read the article. The impotent rage and frustration would kill me. Or at least make me so ill I'd need to go to hospital and drain NHS resources...