To think that not all doctors are badly paid - junior ones, yes, but not all?

Consultants on the golf course therefore late for clinic is ridiculous and so demeaning to consultants. Not a single consultant I work with would be on the golf course before clinic. They might be late because they also have a number of fellows doing PhDs that need help/funding/other supervision, have to check in with their junior team, have a board meeting because they've been told they have to sit on x number of hospital boards, have (often unpaid) research commitments, have been to see a patient on a ward urgently, have been doing their copious amounts of admin because the hiring freeze means they now don't have a med sec, have been grappling with logging into the 12 different ancient IT systems they need to see just one patient, etc etc.

Same here and I couldn't agree more.

Add in the pension and the work out how much you would have to save over a lifetime of work for a similar annuity and then tell me people are underpaid.

I don’t think thats it. DH and I have both worked in both the private and public sector. Lifelong public sector employees really have no idea what it takes to accrue a public sector pension or leave entitlements. Most of us leave the public sector due to frustration and the sclerotic nature of public sector organisations tbh. My experience of the public sector was that they really didn’t have a clue what the private sector was like. They were genuinely convinced they were hard done by.

Sadly, I'm not prepared to pay.more for something that isn't fit for purpose. Throwing money at it isn't the answer. My young, Antipodean colleagues, are horrified at NHS standards.

Wes Streeting announced another maternity review yesterday. Have the reviews that have taken place already not already identified the problems.

I don't like rude doctors and I don't like the fact that they are rarely accountable to the patient.

I took my mother to a hospital appointment yesterday. The young, woman Dr was informative, kind and had looked after mother well. I shall drop a note of thanks. Regrettably that is not always the case. In my experience, for every lovely one, there is one who is less than lovely - usually rude and dismissive. If other professionals were as rude, they would be dismissed.

In my view doctors are professional people like other professional people. In no other sector would employees get away with complaining so much about their employer and to their customers, the patients, complaining about their reward package.

Are you sure that's actually correct?

Based on how much student loan?

Pension is an investment, not a cost.

It’s clear from your multiple posts that you just don’t like doctors.

I think it really depends on where you are in the UK. I genuinely didn’t used to understand how these wonderful clever educated women put up with the crap they took as GPs in one of the UK’s most expensive cities - the lifestyle they would be able to afford wouldn’t make up for the demands put upon them.

But now I live in a much cheaper part of the U.K. where people still really revere doctors… and the 3-day GPS definitely aren’t working 36 hours as I see them at drop off and pick up and activities after that. So they get high status, good pay relative to where we live, and - crucially - high status, extremely secure work in a region where there actually aren’t that many brilliant high earning stable jobs. I earn a third of what I used to in the big city and that’s not accounting for inflation!

I think a pp had it right - it’s not the big-house-private-school-ski-hols job it once was - but what profession is?

I just looked up my husbands and my graduate degree - mine now costs £120k!!!!’ Husbands is £150k! If I did the same study (undergrad, postgraduate then MBA), it would cost £160k in fees alone - but everyone on our C-suite had similar, and I didn’t even crack that as the hours were too insane. I think maybe doctors don’t realise how insane high earning private sector jobs have become, and how costly thw route can be to getting there!

They may get paid for 4 days but they are working significantly longer hours. On my 50-60th hour in a week working as an accountant I am not making important diagnosis that could have life or death consequences.

They are all underpaid...... FOR the work they do.

The latter half of that sentence is the important part. '6 figures' is not 6 figures after tax, NI, medical indemnity, GMC fees, etc. After all of that, it works out to be around 50-60k net income for a fresh consultant (who has about 10+ years as a doctor already).

Again, FOR the work, 50-60k net isn't good enough, no matter how much the public tries to make it seem that UK doctors are rolling in cash. US/AU doctors make up to 2-3x more depending on specialty - we are behind the rest of the world because we have a system that means everyone is underpaid and burnt out and then have the audacity to complain that our doctors 'don't care enough.'

The UK public needs to understand that just because xyz career makes more than what they earn, it does not mean that xyz career is paid fairly. As a nation, we are blind to what occurs behind closed doors and it is only ever to our own detriment. 'Do what you've always done, and get what you've always got' as the adage goes. The NHS will not improve until the people who use it fix their attitude towards it.

I think many professionals work very long hours.

The children's friends in Financial Services/law/accountancy, etc (late 20s/early 30s) are all working 60 hour weeks or more.

I usually do about 45 to 50 and I'm approaching retirement. When DH was practicing he regularly did 70+ hours.

It's mythical that medics work longer and harder than other professuonals. They do, however have greater job security. DH was self employed - no paid annual leave, no sick pay, no employer pension contributions, and huge indemnity insurance premiums.

DS, an academic, works a 60 hour week at assignment/marking pinchpoints and regularly burns the midnight oil to produce conference papers or get a book to the publishers. If he makes Professor, he might brush against £100k. At least, however, he earnt the title of Dr by virtue of his PhD, rather than it being granted on an honorary basis. Needless to say, he doesn't expect other staff or students to address him with his title. He uses his first name.

I honestly think most people dont have a clue about the hours many doctors work, including consultants. A close friend of mine has to work (well get paid for) 4 days per week because they have work so many hours by Thurs night they are exhausted Fri, then have to work all day Sat and Sun just to get the rest of their work done ready for Monday. A supposed 4 day case load takes 6 days, they are now having to reduce to 3 days so they can work 5 and have a weekend off.

They get 6 figures but it is not amazing for the hours, stress and responsibility. Hopefully they've saved enough to retire early along with a good pension as no one can sustain that sort of work life balance into their 60s!

Please tell me where I can find these shifts where there’s no work to do???

Consultant 1old style swans in for morning clinic at 11am most weeks (with overcoat on in winter so obviously hasn't even been on wards) other consultant and registrars in clinic have been going since 9
Consultant 2 old style arrives at 3pm for afternoon ward round from morning clinic at local private hospital (have friends who work there)
Consultant 3 new style works four days - gets paid four days, emails say not in on one day per week no clinics scheduled that day.
These are not the only ones

Because if you’re working 12 hour days working 3 days is full time….. if they were doing stressful GP work 62 hours a week they’d be burned out / suicidal / addicted to drugs pretty sharpish….

@outingoutingif someone really wants to be a doctor - they are not going to understand the pitfalls until they become one. I never thought about money until I had kids and needed money if I wanted to give them a certain life. For some, it is about following a passion. I have tried to dissuade many prospective medical students but they would not listen. And nor should they. It a vocation.

I have to say that a 6 figure salary for a GP or surgeon isn’t at all unreasonable ( and many GPS don’t even get that).
plumbers and electricians get that, and although all their jobs are important and involve years of trading, I think that most people would agree with paying a doctor more than a plumber, because of the ‘life saving’ involved.

It’s also worth pointing out that medicine degrees are extraordinarily costly and in the UK the fees are effectively heavily subsidised relative to other degrees. This is particularly relevant when medics end up working in countries like the US and Australia where they are higher paid.

This. Thank you.

GPs do themselves a disservice by talking about working part time. A ‘part time’ working 4 days a week is working around 48 hours on average. That’s 10 hours more than your average full time worker elsewhere.

I have found some of the younger ones as bad or even worse than the older ones.

I don't agree with the old trope that old school consultants are at their golf club or the local private hospital. I believe the lateness is more to do with the culture of the NHS and a lack of respect for patients.

I have never had to chase my solicitor or accountant and their staff have never, ever been rude to me. If they don't do a good job, they know they will lose business and may not be paid.

When DH was practicing at the Bar he wouldn't have dared be late for court, would have been admonished by the Judge and would have garnered a reputation of being unreliable and unprofessional - result - significant loss of income.

Part time is a relative term. We tend to call it part time if a GP isn't working morning and afternoon five days a week. But, bear in mind GP practices are open 10 hours a day and almost all GPs will have admin to do outside of working hours - it's quite easy to do 36 hours a week over 3 days.

(from an ex GP who found working in general practice too awful to manage and now works as a speciality doctor in an inpatient setting earning around £60,000 - despite having 20 years experience and a masters degree in the speciality I work in)

You get paid according to what you bring to the table not by what you need.

Consultants are actually underpaid when you think about the sacrifices they’ve made. Years of training, rotating, cpd, ridiculous hours, unpaid overtime.
I’ve got a mate who rents out a few Airbnbs and makes about the same as a consultant. Last year, £121k. No night shifts, no lives in their hands. Go figure.