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

With a son who is an F2 doctor, who is seriously considering emigrating, I am well aware of the dire working conditions - the NHS is broken...this is an absolute emergency that has to be addressed before it is beyond fixing.
You absolutely have my support, and I am so grateful for all your hard work.

It’s just not good enough that so much is asked and so little given back. Promises of ‘it will be all worth it one day’ ring hollow and are all too often proven false when it is not enough NOW. What guarantees and security do any of us have nowadays?

The system broke when house and land prices went out of sync with wages and celebrities became more valued than the work that keeps us all going.

Not even equivalent to Agenda for Change and I am quite shocked! Doctorate level posts, which are at band 7 started at just over 40k in this particular financial year.

Think long term. Your future prospects are very good. High earning potential. Unlikely to be made redundant. Great pension. On going training. Flexible working. Portable skills. Everyone starts at the bottom. I wish you luck and hope conditions improve but focus on the opportunities you will have

Holy hell. I am sorry, but there is something very wrong with this world when people giving life saving treatment earn this much in comparison to the shit show currently calling themselves our ‘government’ or any of those waiting in the wings because they are all a shower of shit!

Things need a serious shake up, but, how?

@Janiie Why do you have a chip on your shoulder?

"Juniors" are sometimes 60 year olds. They are certainly not being supervised. Not everyone becomes a consultant. It requires a lot of sacrifices and not everyone can do them. (E.g 60 year old colleague of mine who is a single parent, she couldnt move around the country for training to become a consultant. She had teenage children whom she wanted to give somewhat a stable upbringing. she still works nights. She is blood fantastic. She will never be a consultant. She is technically a "junior doctor". How insulting. This is just 1 example).

Lol @ comparing nurses to doctors. Nurses often are bloody brilliant. They certainly are not doctors. Each do a completely different role. Nurses can do many things that I cannot. Equally, I can do many things a nurse cannot.

@Juniordoc

If there were 'like' button, I'd like your posts, even though I don't agree with them!

I think RL is a con artist of the highest order. This is nothing to do with him going on holiday/to a wedding during the strikes - that's just the way it has worked out, and it's a shame that it has been pounced on by the Torygraph and the Fail.

It's entirely to do with the fact that I think he is yet another public school chancer in the Boris Johnson mould. He is - to my mind - playing at politics and enjoying making his name known, with an eye to feathering his own nest in due course. I don't believe he has any convictions at all. I think he's playing at school debating societies, but the people who are shafted by him are doctors and patients alike.

I absolutely do not believe that he is a true representative of people who genuinely feel that their pay and conditions are intolerable.

I can't blame SB for 'going missing', really. 35% is never going to be feasible, even if merely for pragmatic reasons ("if doctors can have a 35% pay rise [I know it's not a rise, but I'm paraphrasing], then why can't teachers/nurses/midwives/pharmacists/vets/dentists/university teachers/everyone else apart from the self-employed, who can fuck off because nobody gives a shit about them?")

Please don't threaten reporting to the GMC. It sounds absolutely hellish and people frequently commit suicide during this process.

It is not a first port of call. Also, you cant report a "nurse stepping in for a doctor" to the GMC. A nurse does not have a GMC membership by definition because they are not a doctor. I suspect the PP has got it wrong. Nurses can assist in various ways, and possibly consult within their scope with patients that have been triaged as appropriate for them to see. If one does get triaged inappropriately they will be seen by a GP.

They aren't doing GP shifts, they work in GP practices and have defined roles and responsibilities which are not comparable to that of a GP. For some appointments it makes sense, but they are limited in what they can do as are PAs- thankfully. Criminal that a PA gets paid more than a JD though what a joke, and its patients who will suffer under the government's plot to replace many doctors with less qualified, less competent and less capable people who take less training.

@Zzzmumzzz thanks for your message.

Unfortunately though bills can't be deferred. 6 years of medical school wracks up an awful lot of debt. Medical students are not paid anything during this period. Not all progress to become consultants in 10-20 years either. (See previous posts). People unsurprisingly will quit, work abroad or change industries for better pay. Its not a pay rise thats being striked for but a pay restoration. As many doctors on this thread have already posted - they took home 20 years ago what juniors are today. This is not what we signed up for. Apart from the satisfaction of the actual medicine, there is little else left. Terrible working conditions, terrible pay, terrible impact on personal life.

@Tarantullah Exactly. For a 17/18 year old today, becoming a career may seem more attractive. PAs are paid more for less responsibility. Perhaps controversial opinion but I dread to think of a world where we think it is ok to not have doctors and instead have ever increasing allied professionals as a replacement.

The excuse is they're paid more because they don't have the earning potential of doctors, but it's insulting and unfair. You don't have TAs being paid more than a newly qualified teacher because a teacher can go on to earn more than a TA ever will (I think both should be paid better to be clear, but just as an example of how stupid the earning potential argument some have is). There's also anaesthesia associates when there are huge bottlenecks of doctors wanting to train in anaesthesia, it's all to try and build a less qualified but long term cheaper workforce and its genuinely scary as a patient.

@Tarantullah
I have had student PAs shadow me (during the pandemic, in a different hospital/city). They were nice enough people tbh, we got on fine and I thought perhaps there is a place for this role. Someone to take the bloods, put cannulas in, catheters, admin etc to free up time for a junior doctor.

I haven't ever had to work with "qualified" PAs but from what I hear from my juniors it sounds rather a nightmare. They can't prescribe. They can't request radiation (xrays, CT scans). They can write up a prescription but not actually sign it to make it valid, they need a doctor for this. The junior jr drs feel under pressure, struggle to say no. This is exactly how errors are made - signing for someone elses work 11 hours into a shift when youre exhausted.

They see patients (I'm sure some do a good enough job) but havent had a medical training to have a broad understanding. They come up with a limited idea of whats happening/what to do about it. Its not their fault, there arent doctors. But this patient has supposedly now been seen to...
They're very quick to want a CT scan, to put the patient in a "answer machine" but this is radiation which carries its own risks (potential to induce cancer being one, but do they know enough to counsel patients appropriately?) Theres a reason medical training is 5-6 years here and around the world. It cant be done as a crash course...

I can see it may seem like a cheaper option but it really isnt.

That was the point tbf
I was fully aware there would be nothing to report
I was simply attempting to stress it.

That wage is shocking. Thanks for sharing. COVID really underlined the inequalities.
You do deserve more. Most NHS workers do.
Your work is essential and should be rewarding.
The conditions you work under cause so many burn outs. Money alone will not fix this. A 35% rise won't change the job. Might well make it worse.
No point in better wage if your job is killing you.
The job needs to change.
The NHS is one of the best things we have, even in it's current state. It all needs support, from the foundations up.
Your wage is awful, but that's the same for most of the people I know in health care. All disciplines.
In a way it's a distraction from the basic demands and lack of support from within the system.
it's easy to say "behind you 120percent" but
How can the public support you, practically? In the long term?
What can I/we do?

His campaigning has been effortless

Is this really the level of vocabulary used by the brightest and the best?

And who thought of that phrase anyway - a doctor? It seems like a phrase they would use! I've never met a lot self congratulatory bunch.

No, you're wrong. Look it up. They do GP shifts for GP pay in areas where GPs posts can't be filled. Really.

No they don't. They treat people. It creates grateful patients but it's not a divine intervention. It's what they are trained to do, at great expense to the tax payer.

Solidarity

Would you mind linking to this as I couldn't find anything on google.

Completely support you and the NHS. Thank you for all you do you fucking queen 👑♥️ I hope anyone who supports drs and the NHS will not vite conservation at the next GE xx

Vote not vite - conservative not conservation argh

In a doctor’s job a “new” graduate is straight in, human lives and and all. The term doesn’t really apply in the same way as other professions.

Hi there, this is absolutely not allowed. Can you link it to the article please? Nurses and ANP cannot do 'GP shifts' as they are not qualified to do so, nor do they have the indemnity to perform this role as they are not covered.

They may do ANP shifts but thats a limited scope of work and not a 'GP shift'.

So, bear with me on this. Drs do a great job, they treat and save lives under stress. Surgeons in particular. However, without research scientists creating new drugs (who by the way get shit wages), without engineering technicians innovating new imaging and surgical equipment, doctors would not be able to fulfill this amazing life saving role.

Take a look into the future. Tech and AI will be diagnosing you, from your DNA to your imaged insides. Tech will decide your treatment regimen, which drugs in which doses, already there in some areas. Surgical machines could (although it's a scary thought) operate on you remotely.

There will always be a human interaction needed, particularly with novel or pandemic type diseases, but doctors roles will change, and training will need to be modified to reflect it.

All musing of course, and a future unknown, but doctors do not work in isolation, and they couldn't currently do their job without the support of many others.