[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@KirtonandKim,
Based on my acquaintance who is a medium senior NHS manager, I agree with PP who described managers as seeing medical personnel as line workers in a factory and medical patients as the product.
You moan above about a surgeon not doing what you tell him for his £100k. This shows a staggering lack of insight. He has trained for decades and his university colleagues with the same degree of education are earning 2-3x more as bankers or consultants (or even super senior NHS managers). He or she is in it as a vocation and to save lives, not for the (relatively) small salary from the NHS.
Now, on the other hand, what are your qualifications, what are you paid and what is your motivation to work?
A stressful day for a surgeon is a patient bleeding out on the table. A stressful day for you is being shouted at by a stroppy and stressed surgeon.
I suggest you think about the replies on here and reflect how you could be grateful for your overpaid, secure job and show more empathy and compassion to those you ‘manage’.[/quote]
What those of us who have worked in clinical teams (good to see ODPs mentioned on here!) know is that those teams work best when each member values everyone else's contribution. And most importantly of all, it's safer for the patient.
Surgeons are not gods, they are well trained and - usually - very skillful at their roles. Interestingly, very few people on this thread have pointed out that anaesthetists are just as skilled, and if we're looking at who is most important for the safety of the patient, I'd put the anaesthetist top every time. Yet they rarely exhibit the same behaviour youll see from some surgeons, nor will their departments have the political shenanigans that many surgical departments have.
Going back to the NHS managers you denigrate, the NHS lives by clinical and financial targets. There are insufficient resources, human and financial. All of that has to be managed. If there's one ITU bed, and 3 elective patients who might need it, someone has to support the decision making. 3 surgeons in a room will never come to a consensus otherwise!
Someone has to have oversight of the divisional bed situation, out patient waits, surgical waiting lists, finite theatre space, fitting in emergency cases, discharge planning, staff sickness levels, A& E waits, budgeting, recruitment, the list is endless. Without all those things that managers do, the modern NHS can't function.
When I managed a team in theatres (without a medical degree) it was my part of my role to ensure properly trained staff were available in appropriate numbers 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Without my team, surgery would not take place. It really was that simple.
Sneering at someone because they don't have a medical qualification, which they don't need to do their job, is bizarre. Questioning their motivation is just as bizarre.