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.

leavemealone 2015 I'm a member of the public and I fully support and understand why JDs are striking. Jeremy Hunt it seems hasn't got a clue or has he. Personally I do not believe media lies and government spin. How can Drs work the outrageous shift patterns and conditions that are being proposed. I wouldn't like a Dr to have a death on her/his conscience because they made an error through tiredness.
I wouldn't mind paying more tax to keep the NHS going. We all take it for granted and as I said upthread we don't know what we've got til it's gone.
I will never forget the medics who tried and tried to save my dd, it wasn't their fault she died, and when she did the lovely young JDs cried with me and tried to comfort me. 2 of them even came to her funeral after working a long shift.
Keep on trying, I realise you guys are trying to save the NHS. You guys are worth more than Hunt will ever realise and I think most people support you.

one point I think no-one has made is that doctors will be losing 9% of their pay in future anyway to pay for their student loans, because no doctor is ever going to pay it off. That will not be true for the lawyers, management consultants, MPs, general managers, bankers and similar alternative jobs that these young people might take, they have much smaller loans and higher starting salaries. Yes the private sector is a more uncertain world but if you are good at your job they do want to get you back after maternity leave and you are paid (not earn) enough money to pay a London house before that.

Stopping has failed to get a place at a UK medical school and the bitterness shows.

We dont currently train enough doctors, it's been cheaper to recruit overseas doctors. Now we cant recruit them, the job is not attractive. We'll need to train more, at higher cost. The government will recover less money from Doctors's students loans because it will be paying them less. The change is, as is usual with this government, an economic mistake made for purely ideological reasons.

As for other ways to fund change - remove free prescriptions from those of working age. You still get them at 60 when pension age has increased. Stop paying heating allowance to the rich. Stop wasting money on PFI, oh wait that's another economic disaster that can't be changed for ideological reasons. Admit that cutting taxes hasn't revitalised the economy and abandon the idea of cutting corporation tax below the level of any major economy, again an economic failure that can't be admitted because all this government has is its success in deceiving you over the economy. You really can fool most of the people for a remarkably long time.

If you dont look after doctors they will be too tired to look after you.

mamadoc it's easy to get sucked into arguing with people whose POV is not open to change (and it's a waste of time - the only thing that works is when it gets personal - and this just elicits a name change, like a certain person on this thread).

Most people who aren't either stupid or closed-minded can see that if 98% of an unusually well educated and public-spirited group of people are so unhappy with the proposed contract that they are prepare to strike about it, then it goes without saying that the proposal is unreasonable.

tatt No, I didn't fail to get a place in the UK at all. I don't perceive myself as having failed in any way. I have no desire to be trained in the UK or, indeed, to practice in the UK.

I dislike the way that medics are trying to shoot down dissenting arguments using indignation and melodrama. Dislike their persistent failure to engage fully and meaningfully with points that are raised. Dislike their threats that they must go where they are paid the most money, regardless of what is happening to the country or the NHS, regardless of already being the highest earners in the NHS, and regardless of actually having a better all-round deal with the state - and apparently, all while caring first and foremost about the NHS. Dislike that their claims about the life of a doctor don't match the lives of the doctors I happen to know, who are very nice and able to enjoy life fully - as they should (though one of them does insist that he has to take four exotic holidays a year to survive the stress - don't know if he's finished paying his tuition fees or not...). Dislike their failure to acknowledge that the state has given them a medical education for a knock-down price. Dislike the barrage of complaints that they seem to feel are not suffered in any other profession despite myriad examples to the contrary.

And I dislike the fact that they have the nerve to do all this while apparently having the backs of nurses, who have the truly rough deal and rarely enjoyed this kind of protection from them before.

I'm not disagreeing that the job is hard and Mr Hunt's proposals may very well be crap. But so is the attitude. Things feel worse when you complain about them continually.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some anatomy to study

But I don't dislike the strike as such. That's fine. Just don't try to bludgeon the nation into weeping at the injustice of it all...

mamadoc I agree with your summary, though you might find that the 30% argument only works with people who believe the current salary isn't high or compensated for by the salary average - and that will depend on the circumstances of the person you're trying to persuade.

The doctors need to keep making their case although you will always find that the huge numbers of people who work full time for £15k a year in the Uk are not quite in sympathy with them.

On student loans and lawyers it depends on the type of law. Some lawyers doing legal aid might well only ever make £20k - £40k a year. A very few lawyers earn an awful lot. We just don't have the fixed pay scales you get in medicine so you see a few headline rates of what the very few lawyers who are successful make and assume all are the same. however yes it will be harder for junior doctors to pay back student loans but presumably some of those will ultimately get to be consultants particularly if they don't go the way of some women and work part time or give up to live off husband earnings once babies come (never do that - although I suppose if people do give up work they never have to [pay the loans back if they don't work again).

Not all lawyers and doctors have student loans. I work extremely hard indeed and have for 30 years without maternity leaves even and thus have ensured my children graduate without any student debt. Not all women are prepared to do that.

Stopping you're not going to work here anyway so you have nothing to worry about

I really think you should finish your medical degree first before making these statements about the the life of a Doctor.

I'm sorry just because you are going to study medicine doesn't mean you will actually become a doctor. I have many friends who dropped out or were kicked out. With your attitude good luck, please try not to alienate everyone on your course first. Huge chip!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some anatomy to study

Am I the only one reading these posts thinking 'I highly doubt it'.

I know I'm sorry but I've met no one with an attitude like hers on my course and I went one of the most relaxed mixed background medical schools there is (at least it was when it first opened, we had mature students, nurses, older students, people from poorer backgrounds like moi)

She is quite unsympathetic to the actual profession she is allegedly going into. With this kind of cynicism before even starting good luck to them!

Hi mama doc I feel those are good arguments, and realistic comments.

& avoid comparisons at all costs- impossible to do well and offensive at worst
&Maybe call it something other than paycut because we the public will always interpret that literally, and gov can then make the11% argument. I think downgrade is a good word but you will find others
& acknowledge& express gratitude for pension followed by,"but...."

what I have learnt is that yes, there is a lot of money in medicine for some high-energy finance-focused individuals but that there is also a lot of scope to work like a dog into middle age for a very good but not outlandish salary with the pension being the only light at the end of the tunnel and without the respect or understanding of the public

I wish I could reward the grafters with conditions that made the work less frustrating

let's hope it settles

"Our best arguments are

1. This is a 30% pay cut for junior Drs overall which is unfair.

(There will be pay protection for current Drs but those coming into the same job next year will be paid far less)

1. Removing penalties for excessive hours will endanger public safety
2. Removing incentives for antisocial hours will drive Drs away from frontline work such as A&E and this will make for a worse not better service.

Any explanation about the difficulty of the job is seen as whinging.
Any talk about Drs going overseas or private engenders a negative response as this is seen as disloyal and as blackmail rather than realism."

Hi Stopping, a few posters have taken your comments personally and treated that as a licence to make personal attacks back on you which is a pity

I don't think you hate drs, I think you have an excellent ear for the contradictions between the public service argument and the economic argument. good luck with your study and when you are a dr come back and say if your views are the same!

I do just find stoppings posts a bit odd; she appears to speak as though she is an authority on the topic when she has no first hand experience?

Also a chip on the shoulder which may be worn away by five years of study, one can only hope.

mamdoc you've been very patient, I'm behind JDs and if I'm in the country on the day I may join a picket line if I see one!

stoping is doing you all a massive favor because what she says is what lots of people think and you need to know that

Lots of the public also support JDs and the NHS in general but they find the whole thing rather worrying.
I am not a JD (I am married to a consultant so I guess I'm an informed outsider) and my colleagues and contemporaries are in the private sector (construction) and nearly all the parents we know aren't JDs or even drs either, and very few think that Drs are overpaid or moan too much about their working practices - most of them express worry that drs are going to be driven away / exhausted and overworked or that the NHS is being run into the ground. Those that voted Tory say they did not vote for this, those that didn't... well a lot of their comments are un-printable.
I tend to find higher level professionals the least sympathetic possibly because many of them have options when it all falls apart.

As a result of living in 15 different locations inc in Europe, working in all kinds of jobs from factory to professional, 2 colleges, 3 unis and several voluntary organisations I've met and am still in touch with a lot of people from hugely different backgrounds.

Not one thinks like stopping.

stoping is doing you all a massive favor because what she says is what lots of people think and you need to know that

Evidence for this is?

If these contracts are enforced, you might find that there arnt any Drs around to sign them or the high calibre of Dr we expect wont be around in the future, my dd and her fellow students are considering their options. Either working abroad or changing profession to finance.

Lollipopgirl8 I like people. All I can see on a computer screen are arguments that create more questions than answers - the information given by doctors can be desperately contradictory. You don't need to hate the profession or despise medics to feel irritated by that. Goodness knows, doctors appear to feel deeply irritated on a permanent basis if the publicity they generate is anything to go by.

I'd care deeply about an exhausted colleague - always, but the vast majority of people in this country are under huge pressure. Salaries in other healthcare professions have fallen many times, hours have gone up, job stability and morale gone down - and I disagree that doctors have some kind of moral right to have their profession equated with that of a romanticised city trader, rather than their colleagues within the NHS. I know they say they're doing this for their colleagues and for the system, but put in context, that simply doesn't add up for me. But I wouldn't, and haven't, said this in RL.

oh, just stop trolling

Stopping aka MissTriggs aka Troll

I have enquired in good faith, learned a lot and ignored the abuse. believe what you want to believe Lolipop and best wishes to all.

Miss Triggs and I haven't met before - you can verify this with MNHQ if you like. Though I agree that it's tempting to believe that everyone who doesn't agree with you must live under a bridge and spend their lives impersonating others. Not the case on this occasion though

Very interesting discussion.

Sorry for late reply I've been doing a bit of you know, work.

Hope everyone realises Drs feel they have to educate people and explain to save the NHS in the future and to show they are not going to just roll over and take what JH has to offer. He hasn't a clue and it makes us so mad. He has never done a days work in his life in the health service. Most trusts won't let him in now anyway because he is so blatantly anti healthcare.

There is a lot of distrust these days it's really sad.

Stopping...good luck with the degree and night shifts etc. team work and positive thinking!!