Reasonable to expect a surgeon to do this?

Good point. Sure, plastic surgery and other fairly unnecessary stuff could be rescheduled without too much issue but joint replacements - don't be so sure.

At the risk of outing myself, I'm currently waiting for a major joint replacement. I am on six different kinds of pain relief including morphine, and none of it is controlling the pain. My mobility and ability to function is fucked, and I am in constant severe pain every day and much of the night and have been for two years.
The wait for pain management clinic is March 2025.
For the joint replacement? Much longer.

This is the current state of orthopaedics in the NHS, so yeah, surgeons who are adding to the problem by abandoning their patients to go and wipe their kids' noses, who haven't organised any kind of alternative childcare provision for emergencies they KNOW are likely to happen and clearly have no idea of how it is to live with something like this, get not much respect from me.

@Beeturpot this makes interesting reading!

https://www.ewi.org.uk/Membership/Becoming-an-Expert-Witness/Day-in-the-life-of-an-Expert-Witness/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-surgeon

I posted the BMA pay scales. Ta

Perhaps because there is no possible way to have a back up plan
😁 Yes there is a way to have a backup plan. My not very high paid RAF dad had a nanny for us every day after school until he came home and then he would pay her to do more when mum when do-lally and was sectioned into hospital at unpredictable intervals.

There are also au pairs.

These days, there is also after school care and breakfast clubs- my dad would have saved a ton of money if those were around then.

Neighbours, parents of your DC’s friends in a pinch are a back up plan too for having to work late. Your DC goes home with friend and you collect them later.

Then you need to pay someone to do it.

Because leaving work for this kind of non-emergency, especially with the current state of the NHS, with people waiting months and months for pain relief and cancer operations, is actively doing harm to their patients.

I'm sorry for your loss though, that's rough.

Those who are saying this surgeon would be earning "big bucks"- how much are you imagining his pay is? It would be between £120-150K. It's all relative but not enough for the responsibility carried and the ongoing sacrifices.

Luckily, he has a few years experience, he can ditch most of his NHS work and really earn big bucks privately

I think he’s being a bit ridiculous.

My husband is a Consultant colorectal surgeon, Im also a doctor in a different field. We have two nursery age children. He does more drop offs and pick ups than I do, although we did have to find a nursery which opened at 7.30am. My husband is clinical and directly patient facing probably 3 days a week, the other two he has the flexibility to work from home if needed, with on call commitments being the exception to that. Yes he can’t drop things immediately if he has a theatre or endoscopy list or clinic but unless you ex is on a huge number of PAs, there will definitely be time when he can help if needed.

Haven’t read the rest of the thread because I’m too busy imagining a surgeon just leaving some poor bastard wide open on the table while he runs off to pick the kids up from school

I do wonder what specialty these surgeons are in? Perhaps it is not urgent things like trauma or oncology surgeon but orthopaedic surgeons doing knee replacements or scoping out frozen shoulders or plastic surgeons doing nose jobs…things that can literally be rescheduled and are not life or death.

Perhaps because there is no possible way to have a back up plan, and you have been utterly unable to suggest what that back up plan should be.

We had a back up plan - my father in law. He died recently and now we don’t have one anymore.

You can tell a surgeon to jump to the moon and then say “not my concern” when asked how but it’s not a particularly credible position to hold.

what they do and do not have to do regarding their job is between them and their employer. They don’t have to answer to you.

I've not said she should do everything. Not once. I've said that people in this kind of job should have some kind of alternative childcare provision sorted out so that they don't have to leave work and bugger up the health of people relying on them to pick up their kids from nursery. Sure, if he can't do it himself he should organise some other way of getting it done.

Strangely most of the surgeons on the thread are reluctant to address that, or why they haven't done it.

@RobBeckettsGiantTeeth i think you are saying that he should organise alternative childcare that isn’t his ex wife? It’s just that your tone reads that she should do everything regardless even though she’s getting divorced. Or am I misunderstanding.

According to the surgeons on this thread that's perfectly acceptable.

No doubt most of them are well-paid enough to have private healthcare and have never been at the mercy of NHS surgery waiting lists, though, so a cancelled appointment would probably only mean a delay of a couple of days to them.

They live in another world, certainly not the real one.

@parkrun500club she shouldn't have to rely on his goodwill, ofcourse not he should step up and fulfill his equal parental responsibilities. However courts can only enforce having access to the children they can't enforce the parent actually taking it up or providing childcare on his time. If he doesn't bother doing it, it will just fall to OP and she'll get a phone call to say no ones picked them up.

The courts might amend the contact schedule to give him less days so OP can make proper plans for childcare or maybe up his maintenance to cover the cost of extra childcare but they don't tend to want to decrease the fathers access even if they aren't taking it up.

The fact that I feel it is unacceptable to cancel someone's surgery to go and pick your child up early is not "misinformation".

Again: Why do people who may find themselves in this situation not have alternative provision? I'd like to hear your answer for that. It's lack of planning, pure and simple, causing untold headaches for other people.

Exactly, so OP’s ex can’t waltz out at 2:30pm to do the school run because OP has a client meeting on zoom, leaving them having to tell another consultant to come in six hours early for a 16hr shift…

@RobBeckettsGiantTeeth

You just carry on reading your own version of the thread, and ignoring the many knowledgable posters who are correcting your utter misinformation. 🙄

Very few "emergencies" need a parent. Picking up child early from nursery, which is mostly what we're discussing here as per the OP, doesn't. Again, why do you not have a back up plan for this eventuality that you know as a parent is likely to occur? What parent hasn't had to pick up their child from nursery from time to time? It is your responsibility to have an alternative option for childcare if you are in the kind of job where leaving to do it can cause such problems for other people. Why do you not have it?

I worked in a childcare centre in a village that happened to have a v high % of the local population that were in the medical field. Of all the consultants/surgeon parents I met over 5 years I can only think of 2 families where the second parent worked out of the home 2, both of them were GPs and had au-pairs/grandparents as well as the creche. It would be v difficult to manage a job for the second parent as they are the default for school drop offs, illness, be certain of being at creche before it closed every evening.
Your ex needs to fork out money to take the load off you, but whether that's likely.......

@IbisDancer

Did you even read my post, where I referred to extended nanny care? 🤦🏻‍♀️

But if it is a situation where parents are needed, OP & her ex have to deal with that equally, and wrap around care is irrelevant then.

You're right there are less specialists than GPs but that doesn't mean surgeons can be worked into the ground, it's vital they're well rested, they cannot be made to work 24 hours a day.

Yes, it depends on the speciality but it is not common for there to be several consultant surgeons of same speciality not operating and just doing paperwork, ready to go all at the same time….

This isn’t dermatology

I think rather you are inventing a utopia NHS rather than the gutted one we have.

Plenty of male doctors also are available for their DC when needed, when it's an emergency or important.

That's their responsibility to sort out.
Don't be so silly. You haven't a notion what you are talking about.

If there's an emergency needing a parent, it's an emergency needing a parent. And that's ok.

Of course it would help. Most “emergencies” are child has thrown up and needs to go home early. Nannies can and do care for sick children.

They aren’t blue light to hospital emergencies. If they were, both OP and ex would have to go when they can.