My payslip as a doctor in Feb 2021 during COVID

[Juniordoc]

See attached image. Yes this is for full-time work with weekends and nights in the currently stretched working conditions that the NHS provides.

This does not include the expenses and sacrifices of a six year medical degree. On top of that, we have to pay out of pocket for our own GMC membership, medical defence union, postgrad exams and revision courses, conferences and courses.

Please get behind us and support the strikes. We are burnout, exhausted and struggling to live

But the thread is based on a payslip for a f1

You are under a training programme that nurses could only dream of that offers you rotations, CPD, your own mess, gold star pension with a job at the end as a consultant that is £120k.

You should not be seeking sympathy from people but accept this is the model you competitively fought for when you went to medical school.

Being a FY1 is not like being just out of Uni FFS! They are qualified doctors. How are people comparing to solicitors, not relevant at all.

Everyone comes out of uni “qualified” for whatever profession they are about to enter.

Let’s not pit doctors against nurses. The point is that everyone is underpaid in the NHS compared to other countries, and compared to private sector jobs with comparable level of skills.

If the NHS breaks, we’ll all be paid market rates. Pay and conditions will improve for staff, but it’ll cost much more for patients. I think that’s where things are heading to.

An FY1 is just out of uni, and although bursting with knowledge, depending on the placements they’ve done, some of them have a terrifyingly low level of skills experience. The conditions that they are then expected to work are both unacceptable and in my opinion dangerous - but no salary can or should make up for this, and so it’s the conditions that should be more radically changed in my opinion, along with whatever pay rise nurses and AHPs get.

Also, doctors are not looking for sympathy. We’re not stuck in this job, we can leave. It’s just a disaster for this country if we all leave.

Personally, I’m still here because I want to be. I’m not big a spender so the pay is ok for me. But if things get worse, I know there are jobs in the private sector that will pay twice as much for less stress.

The solicitors salaries being quoted are the exception not the rule. Most solicitors don’t work in London for the big firms and earn a lot less than £28k.

I do support the strikes but it’s the conditions not the pay that are terrible.

Really? A lot less than 28k? That is hard to believe.

That's a ridiculous comment, they definitely don't. Some have hardly stepped foot in an actual workplace, if you do an accountancy degree you are definitely not a qualified accountant, you still have professional qualifications to take afterwards, most degrees you aren't qualified to do a job, you just have a qualification that can start you part way to learning a job. A medical degree is way more than that.

Obviously there are other exceptions but you definitely aren't qualified to do most things with a degree.

Technically just out of uni but in a totally different context to most students just out of uni.

I totally agree with what you are saying though, the expectations on them are huge as an FY1 and they do not get paid accordingly to what they are doing but what they are doing is not right either. I feel that it they were treated like trainees and supported a lot more and not expected to work in the way they do then the pay probably wouldn't feel as bad (obv the fact the increases are so low over the years needs addressing of course).

@DisquietintheRanks law has a huge range of salaries. The high street firms don’t pay much above minimum wage for their trainee solicitors. And many of those trainee solicitors will be handling a full case load from day one. They are meant to be supervised but the level of supervision is very variable. It’s a strange profession as the trainees working for the top firms get much less responsibility but much more pay!

You do remember it was in the news very recently that some prosecuting barristers were on about £12k? That was why they went on strike.

Trainee hairdresser ? Maybe. But doctor? No. Absolutely not. That pay is shocking and disgraceful

@Juniordoc do you mind if I share your image further on insta and FB?

It's a bloody disgrace.

Yes, it’s an intensive degree and that’s why medical and dental graduates have the highest starting salaries! Average graduate entry salary is 24k. Graduate entry salary for doctors is around 32k. OP was on 34k when she started. It can go as high as 39k. That is an excellent starting salary and I think that’s fair enough that they get that.

@anythinginapinch there is no way an apprentice hairdresser is going to earn 34k a year! Maybe 10k. There’s a bit of a difference.

It doesn’t matter if you think the current pay is enough. The doctors don’t, and that is why they are leaving for higher pay and better work life balance, they are leaving for different careers or moving abroad where they are appreciated. The one striking are trying to keep the NHS intact.

Again, this sort of comment makes you look so out of touch. Of course doctors should earn more than a trainee hairdresser - and of course they do, by a very long way.

I no longer live in the UK, I'm in Western Australia, and I'm horrified at the people on this thread racing to the bottom. My son is a part-time food delivery, driver, his hourly rate is higher than the OP, which is ridiculous! A friend of mine decided to downsize their job, she earns $72k AUD for cutting grass! Now I understand why the last time I went to hospital (my husband was the patient),every other doctor or nurse we saw was British or Irish. I know the WA government had a fairly recent recruitment drive in the UK looking for doctors and nurses as we are short of staff here too, so if you don't start improving conditions the NHS could be in huge trouble. Although I know it is already, from what family and friends tell me, so I support the strikes all the way, FWIW.

Perhaps enlighten me, if your historical knowledge is so much better than mine, rather than just sniping like a teenager?

Though if you have ever studied History, you will know that there is more than one way of interpreting historical events (I wouldn't even call them 'facts').

And quite regardless of the history of Trades Unions (which I do in fact know a fair bit about), I have just as much right not to strike and not to support strike action as you have to do the reverse.

@loadypoady I agree with every word of your post. Very well said.

I don’t understand this viewpoint.

Most people become doctors because they want to save lives.

I know someone who lost both parents and their only sibling at various times throughout their childhood and they had hopes of becoming a doctor because of it.

Saying that law pays more so why didn’t they do that instead is silly, why shouldn’t they be able to do medicine.
Law and medicine are completely opposite vocations.

If people leave medicine or don’t train, then we will have no doctors and that is a problem for everyone.

Instead of saying they knew what they were in for or get a different job, we should all be saying stay where you are and we’ll support your fight for better pay and working conditions.

I was pointing out the stupidity of the post I quoted - that "a trainee" as a concept applied as the poster I quoted did, is meaningless. I was NOT saying a trainee hairdresser earns that much. Ffs.

My cleaner earns £18 an hour. If she worked 60 hours a week - like an F1 doctor - she'd earn £56,000. About double what the OP does. On what planet is that reasonable?