NHS Doctors do you enjoy your job?

[LakerThanLake]

DD (15) is adamant she wants to be a doctor. She has wanted to be a paediatrician since she was 10 years old and loves anything to do with science and medicine. She is very academic and from the POV I don't think it's unrealistic. She's got bags of empathy but can keep a cool head when things are challenging, all in all probably not bad skills for the profession?

However, we live in England and the NHS seems on its knees, hospitals are understaffed and doctors and nurses work their socks off. It appears that the future of healthcare is bleak in this country?

With all this in mind, if you are a doctor, do you actually enjoy your job? What is it that you like about it and what keeps you going? Are there any positives?

In my opinion these decisions are best left to the individual, provide information not opinions....as you can see from above we all work in the NHS some love and some hate it.....we all live with our own decisions!! If you push/pull then that doesn't really help!

Yes all fine for those in the system in last few years of working. But benefits are actually rubbish eg mat pay 8 weeks (Lawyers 12months)

The fuck? No lawyer I've ever met gets 12 months full pay

My trainee salary was lower than the starting salary for a nurse

We're not all corporate lawyers

@Rosemaryandlemon

I’m a barrister, not a doctor, but we have lots of friends in professional fields and to be honest very few want their children to follow them into the field/recommend it to others. I always tell my children not to be a barrister. You work crazy hours, no sick pay, no maternity pay. You will spend holidays working. I do get paid well though, but a lot of barristers don’t. It’s also a very adversarial culture loads of robing room rubbish.

But we have friends who are doctors, vets, teachers, management consultant and I know not one who would recommend their job.

So my advice tell her to win the lottery!

Lol. I loved that a Barrister had no qualms whatsoever about shoehorning themselves into a thread that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with them.

Nice one.

Honestly though being a doctor is shite at the moment. It should be the best job in the world but the system is broken and I really wouldn't recommend it as a way to spend your life.

There are easier ways to and fulfilling and happy career that won't suck the life out of you in the process and will allow you to have a decent standard of living

Alternatively she could be a doctor anywhere else than in the UK

Hospital doctor here.

I feel completely broken and at breaking point. Morale is at an all time low and that’s being followed up with complaint after complaint from patients at present because it’s such a broken system right now. Watching colleagues die last year from their work was so difficult and today there just isn’t enough staff with so many people still off sick. It feels like such a mess. A lot of hard work and many many years spent studying to get to this point and I definitely don’t feel appreciated and would never recommend this as a career to anyone. Definitely not worth it.

Lol. I loved that a Barrister had no qualms whatsoever about shoehorning themselves into a thread that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with them.

I love that a mother comes in mn to ask randoms on the Internet to put her poor daughter off her chosen career.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with her!

It is interesting to see doctors complain about sickness and pay. A very small percentage of lawyers earn good money at magic circle firms.

I once worked in a law firm that had no sick pay at all in the contract. It was discretionary. SSP is what you got.

Maybe it is helpful for over bearing mum and the doctors to see that other careers aren't so rosy either.

Party the reason my daughter want to be a doctor is because she sees it as her ticket out of the UK.

@Kendodd

Party the reason my daughter want to be a doctor is because she sees it as her ticket out of the UK.

She can just leave now.

Lol. I loved that a Barrister had no qualms whatsoever about shoehorning themselves into a thread that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with them.

Nice one.

I think the point being made was that a lot of people in a profession would warn people off that profession.
I thought it was a good point actually.

@AliceinBorderland
She can just leave now
No she can't, I'm sure you must know this.
She only has a UK passport, no other. Immigration into countries is hard, you have to have useful skills that the country needs in order for them to grant you resident status. Being a doctor will give her those skills that will open doors and give her opinions.

I love my job. I'm a registrar is a surgical speciality, and I love being a doctor, I love treating patients, I love operating, I love it when I can actually be a doctor.

However the fact that I love that bit I think enables me to do the job when it can be really really tough. Finding a work/life balance is hard. There's a lot of stress. Often junior doctors will get blamed for everything and get stuck in the middle, the nurses will blame them, the consultant will blame them. Nurses will say do this, consultants do that - when they talk to each other they will compromise but not through the junior doctor. You have to do nights which can be brutal, this frequently involves fiddly procedures at 3am in the morning on your 4th night in a row. And the anxiety and stress that comes with having to concentrate and not make any mistakes in that scenario is difficult. Plus trying to read that patient right to provide them with the appropriate bedside manner, deal with their anxieties around their treatment when you are exhausted and stressed because you've got a long list of other patients to see. It can be hard to unwind because there's a lot of thoughts of did I do this right, did I miss something, have I harmed someone?

It is very unit dependent as well, I've worked in great hospitals and shocking ones. It depends how supportive the seniors or ward staff/theatre staff are and how supportive the hospital is of its staff. Sometimes I just get tired of being nice to people, I feel on edge all the time because one wrong move and your patient complains, your consultant will deride you and the nurse will datex you. That's probably a symptom of general stress but you do need to develop a thick skin.

The other hard thing is not always being able to give your patients what they want. Or 'fix' them. A lot of the time you can't easily treat the patient and make them better. Sometimes too much empathy can be a bad thing because it's hard to switch off, sometimes I feel I have done something wrong if the patient isn't 100% better even though that was not possible. Sometimes you do need to detach to provide the best care

I came at it slightly differently in that I was a mature student doing medicine. I'd had a chance to experience the job before hand and I knew what I was getting into. However doing a medicine degree doesn't mean you need to become a doctor. It is a good degree regardless and it is not a lifetime commitment. If your DD wants to do medicine - do it. See how she likes it, there's still a lot of choices and paths she can take that aren't becoming a doctor

Has she thought about becoming a pharmacist instead? Much better work life balance (at least in my hospital).