to share with you this gem - do you know who is being a burden on the NHS?

[NorthernLurker]

Women doctors (Daily Telegraph link) Of course! Yes those naughty women getting trained and then having babies. How very dare they. Sayeth two women MPs........who need to visit the most male chauvinist GPs they can find for their own safety in the future. Guess who won't be getting the speculum warmed?

I despair, I really do. Don't read the comments btw unless your blood pressure is dangerously low.

flower- you can go to medical school, invest £50k in your studies and train for around 10 years, but as I said above, I wouldn't advise it.

FFS this is outrageous. .as if good doctoring was measured by hours worked over a lifetime!! women are more than 50% of the population. cliche suggests women can be more empathetic in general and specifically to other women.. even more so after childbirth and family activities which still tend to fall largely with women not to mention the sensible supply esp at gp level of women who are tuned to the difficulties challenges and sometimes medical consequences of balancing both a career and family from a female perspective..because that is increasingly who their patients are as well.

What is a feasible point is that women are more likely to be gps and/or psychiatrist s than surgeons.. but tgat is a matter of readjusting the career expectations in a waythat helps both genders to progress in different patterns of success so that the ' wotk your ass off all hours' iisn't the only way to be valued..

Oh my friggin God! Can ANYONE become an MP in this country? That's an awful thing to say!

This is exactly why fathers need more rights and responsibilities when it comes to childcare!

"I certainly won't be actively encouraging any of my DC into medicine"

Well, I can tell you the competition is enormous to get into Medicine at Uni, the degree requirements are ludicrously high for what is actually required - which implies they could get far more people doing medicine if more places were made available, which try will need if more go part time

The other option is to rework the contracts so the doctors can't go part time, or have to work over more of the day, or both.

It's a question of funding and investment, not what hours individual doctors do.

I know many doctors who are parents but able to work nights, be on call etc due to partners. If they wanted to extend the hours doctors are available, they easily could by training and employing more doctors. But they won't.

It is ludicrous and infuriating to suggest that part time doctors are a burden on NHS when alternative is only allowing men to train, or writing women with children off less than half way through their working life and starting again with a new set of trainees.

May as well complain about cost of training doctors full stop. So pricey!

I don't think the critics of part time working would say they want to write off women. They just want women and men to work as they did 30 years ago. Full time or not at all. Which of course is writing off women and ignoring the quality issues others have raised. Women are good doctors. So are men. Given the choice between a part time, well rounded and fulfilled individual as my doctor or a resentful full time employee with no personal fulfillment beyond their work I know who I'd choose.

Out of all the GPs at my surgery, I usually ask to see the part time lady Dr, who has 2 children and does 3 mornings a week. There are other female Drs available so it's not just that she gets booked up for all the ladies/gynae issues. Being part time means she is less stressed, and a better listener, than some of her full time abrupt, arrogant male colleagues. Also being a mum she realises that "parents really do know their children best" - when others have pooh-poohed my (justified) concerns thinking they know better.