to wish doctors weren't going on strike

[MissTriggs]

After 5 months of misdiagnoses, being sent to the wrong person, explaining why suggestions weren't helpful, holding my GP's hand and fighting to get to the right person I'm now booked in to have the test I need on 2nd December, the day after the strike.

If my test was on 1st December I'd be pretty upset

I then read a post on here from a junior doctor claiming s/he could make more money "as a manager at Greggs" and that tipped me over the edge.

I saw lots of posts from doctors saying they already work weekends but it turns out they get paid extra for this at present.

I think doctors have no idea what it is to work in a job where you can be sacked easily, where you don't know whether work is coming in from day to day, where your employers have no interest in getting you back to work after a career break and where you either have no pension or the value of your pension can fall from year to year and be worth nothing.
I also think they don't realise that, whilst a generation ago doctors might have been unusual in working antisocial hours, nowadays all professionals are expected to be available all the time.

I might be wrong, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable here.

Deo no what they will do is to become doctors and then go and practice ONLY in the private sector, charging everyone extortionate prices for a visit (where they might not even do anything at all).

So there will plenty for all the people who have private healthcare and very little for most of those who are still trying to use the NHS because they don't have thre choice.

Deo
My understanding from this thread is that some medical fields attract people whose prime concern is not money and indeed do not have much market for private practice options

Want what I'm always is how much care in the US (or private healthcare here) cost compare to other countries.

I've seen it before, it would be cheaper to go to Switzerland from the US, spend a week hols there and get a scan tha it is to have a scan in the US.
GP in France charge 30 euros per visit. That's the 'standard price' reimboursed by the equivalent of the NHS (Note: people don't pay their GP anymore so not that different than what happens here). These are people who 'self empolyed' ie private and are earning a very very nice wage. So why is it OK for a GP in private practice to charge £100???

That's why I really don't like this so called private system. It allows prices to skyrocket with no reason at all.

wood Scans are not that expensive. dHs MRI is $450. The list price is something like $4500 but that isn't the cash price you pay if you don't have insurance or what the insurance company pays.

While the U.S. system isn't perfect what you see are people going abroad for plastic surgery, not for actual health related care.

I do understand ivy but think it is morally wrong

That's a good point Supermum where I was we had zero income tax and a small amount of social insurance tax.

Our healthcare is also great and we can opt for treatment in specialty hospitals in both the Us and Uk and have full payout by insurers including about $200/night towards any hotel or living costs while visiting said hospital.

Also if you are working companies have to provide private health insurance and pay half of your premium... In many of the higher paid industries they pay your entire premium for you and your family

We have just paid for my dad to have private care in the UK. It was far more expensive than what we would have paid here in the US. I was shocked.

I suspect that it depends on your treatment and where you are in the US. I know the treatment I get under the NHS for my chronic condition is incredibly expensive for people I know with the same condition in the US. I know of people worrying about affording their treatments which they will need for life - one has recently sold her car to get through the next few months.
The drugs themselves are even more expensive to the patients or the insurance companies because due to bargaining power of the NHS (large provider) it's significantly cheaper to the NHS. Interestingly one person I know over there is on exactly the same regime as me but where I'm allowed to self inject, she has to pay to be injected by a nurse which is an additional cost. I think it's hard to compare as there is no single system in the US.

Project I didn't realise I was misreading you, I was aware you aren't in the medical profession, I was just posting an anecdote about the shittiness of doctors rotas.

As a nurse mine has been pretty shit over the years but at least I can request a day off.

In the UK most doctors aren't in the SE and elsewhere for most there are not enough people with enough money to pay privately for there to be a huge opportunity to do vast amounts of lucrative private work so I am certainly not saying it is an option for all consultants.

Deo - I am intrigued.
Is your relative a plastic surgeon by any chance?

My DH obviously got it all wrong - working in a pretty deprived area, looking after very sick but mainly poor people, saving lives and fighting for staff and services. He did become a doctor to help people though and has done a huge amount to improve standards of care in the UK.

I would actually like the systems in Germany, Denmark and Australia to be compared to the NHS. Comparing the UK to the U.S. is very hard, I agree. For a start there are 300 million people over the area of the EU. Then each and every state has a different set up.

From what I saw in Denmark, the care was of a descent standard, not as good as the US but certainly my MIL has had zero need to go private while my dad gave up with the NHS Gp he was seeing privately and went with a private only GP in Manchester. This was all to diagnose diabetes type 2. Now he has the diagnosis he is back to the NHS GP for care.

Mrssconsultant, so you are saying he brings home enough to prosper but not to be wealthy ( over 100000k=wealthyx here)

Wealthy is a long piece of string. GBP100k a year is not wealthy in my book. More like GBP250k+ if in the NW of the UK. Even then that wouldn't enable you to buy into nicer parts of Cheshire.

To compare, DH, if in the UK would be making around £300k in the north manchester area. I have zero problems with a doctor making that sort of income. From my perspective it means they are very good at what they do.

To extrapolate to different professions, I'm at big4 and yes partners make those salaries of £200k+ a year outside of London as do partners at regional law firms. However, what you have to also look at is that in an annual intake of 5000 at my firm they only expect 0.8 to make partner. The others top out at much lower salary levels. I see the medical field being exactly the same.

No - he doesn't/didn't bring home as much as £100K.

We live in a reasonable area in a semi on a fairly busy road. Our neighbours are teachers, social workers, people who work in IT, banks etc also quite a lot of retired people who worked in the police, fire service or similar. They bought their houses when prices were much lower. We wouldn't be able to afford our house if we were buying it now.

There were a couple of lawyers, but they moved to bigger and better houses in a more expensive part of town .

We have always had second hand cars, don't spend huge amounts of money on holidays, but we are very fortunate and content with our standard of living. The only thing I regret is that the DC never saw their dad much when they were little. They are all clever, hardworking kids, but none of them would even consider doing medicine.

Pooh thread is getting longer

In our lecture last week I was told highest paid private practice was gen surg, orthopaedics and ophthalmology. He put the figure up. The average was around 132K for ophth but that is before tax and costs. This was on top of NHS pay the best had something like 472K. He said it depends on what subspecialty ( so refractive/cornea, oculoplastics and VR) it also depends on length of time to build this and where you are in the country.

Pp is not for everyone certainly not something I will jump into when I finish this programme.

But the option to earn money is there and I'm sorry to say some doctors do have money motivation this is why ophth and other surgical specialties are too oversubscribed. It is really difficult to get them and I had to ravel halfway across the country to get this run-through.

I don't see a problem with docs doing private work as long as it doesn't affect their NHS work. i used to do agency nursing as well as my NHS job. Not sure what the problem is I never heard anyone say anything negative about it, why is it different for doctors? Obviously the amount of money involved is different but the principle is the same surely?

MissTriggs Fri 20-Nov-15 14:01:04

I do understand ivy but think it is morally wrong

Why is it morally wrong? What someone does in their own free time is their business. Like a pp mentioned, a consultant is not allowed to do private practice during their NHS time so I don't see what the problem is.

A good friend of mine is an accountant at a Big4 firm. In her free time, she does the relatively simple accounts of her elderly neighbours who insist on paying her a small fee. Is that now morally wrong?

As someone who works for big4 it's not permitted to do work like that. You need to go through the independence committee. I help DH out with his business. It's only been allowed because I'm lower level. As soon as you hit senior manager or above its not allowed. Certain charity work is allowed and one of the requirements is that is pro bono.

Appreciate that mrs consultant x

Want2bSupermum, I believe it's all above board, though I haven't quizzed her extensively over what processes she has gone through though

Which brings me to my point : if it's all legal and sanctioned by the powers that be, who cares what anyone does outside "office hours"?

Exactly in fact a lot NHS work gets outsourced to private sector and I can remember my father having a hernia op in a very swanky private London hospital he didn't want to leave

DH is a consultant surgeon and he can only dream of having enough time or energy for doing private practice.

He is currently doing his 7 day on call, usually we won't see him until 10pm if he gets home at all. More often than not he will be called back in whilst still on his way home.

His phone will go at 3am and he must be ready to go and be within 20 mins of the hospital at all times. He must be there and ready to operate within that time.

When he's not actually at work he worries about his patients and despairs when his skills aren't enough.
He constantly researchs new techniques or writes papers to keep his skills up to date.

We are not rich by any means, the money that he earns he works very hard for and carries huge responsibility.

I don't know how he does it, I couldn't.

Doctors are not considered wealthy pp or not as they are paid a salary and that can stop at any time. I would consider wealth to be high disposable income not necessarily earned.

I used to wish we had a spare bedroom because the nights on call used to make me tired - and I was just being woken by the phone. I didn't have to get up and dressed and go in to work, having already worked a 10 hour day.

Having to buy a house within 10 miles of the hospital left us with little choice of areas/schools etc. Still - we were lucky to end up where we are. I am not moving again! (We had to move 5 times in 9 years because of the jobs before the consultant post).