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.

Workers rights are being abused across the board, if more people joined unions there would be more protection for all. If unions could get involved there'd be none of the zero hours rubbish. We should be supporting the Doctors striking not moaning about it, same with transport workers strikes, public sector the lot. I really don't understand why more shop workers don't join their union - they are so vulnerable. Rights that have been fought for over many decades are being dismissed because people don't join unions and therefore the unions have less and less influence.

I'm no die-hard activist but without the legal representation I received as a result of being a union member I would have lost my job and pension due to harassment and intimidation from a senior manager. My subs were worth every penny.

One of the fundamental differences is that if a lawyer or business person in a well paid professional job chooses to do extra work at evenings and weekends for no more pay it is their choice. If my DH (non-medic) has a project to turn in of course he might choose to work late or at the weekend but his would be from his desk at home or at the worst in his office and when he gets too tired he'll go to sleep in his own bed.

I do not think that is a comparable situation to me being rostered to a night shift running around the hospital at 3am where the job will never be over and done. I actually think that extra pay for antisocial hours is still a very normal expectation in many jobs eg care work, supermarkets, factories, cleaning, hospitality where it is a shift rota with no choice involved (I know that because it's how I paid my way through med school pre-clinical years). In those kind of jobs you usually get time and a half or double time for Christmas Day- no such luck for Drs. If you are on the rota you work it for no extra pay.

The other point you are missing is that the antisocial hours payment is a huge part of the overall renumeration package. The basic rates of pay are very low considering the academic qualifications required and the length of training. I do happen to think that a dr should get paid more than the manager of Greggs a lawyer or banker is surely a fairer comparison. It is not 'getting paid extra' to work on Saturdays. It is an overall package where the antisocial nature of routinely working Saturday's as part and parcel of the job is currently recognised and in future will not be.

You cannot choose to work extra and get paid extra (unless you locum- equivalent to go freelance) the hours limits stop you taking on any extra as you will already be working up to legal limits. Your only choice is to go into a specialty with lots of out of hours work (eg paeds, obstetrics, A&E) and get paid a higher overall wage to reflect the antisocial hours or choose something less onerous (dermatology, rheumatology) do easier hours and get paid a bit less to reflect that. You can't make that choice until you've been working a minimum of 2 years anyway. If everyone chooses the easier hours because there is no extra reward for the harder ones then emergency care will be worse than it already is and you will have more to complain about.

You would not do this job for the pay. If you can get into medical school you can get a better paid job for less effort than being a Dr if that's what floats your boat. You do it because you want to help- cheesy but true.

Yes there is job security, yes there is a guaranteed pension (for which you pay handsome contributions) yes you would very often be able to negotiate part time work although the hours will still be hellish so childcare will be a complete nightmare. It is not true that it is easy to come back after a career break. Most Drs know better than to ever take a career break. Most take mat leave of 6-9 months, a year absolute max. If you try to take more you will lose your place on the training scheme as a junior Dr and have to reapply, you will have to undertake re-training at your own expense to prove you are still competent and you would have to pay expensive GMC and defence Union subs the whole time you were off with no income. In most hospital specialties if you take a career break you can never come back and certainly not at the same grade.

I could say more but this post is long enough already.

If you don't support the strike and the government have their way
we will go back to a long hours culture with burnt out, exhausted, unsafe junior Drs
The recruitment crisis in A&E and acute specialties will get worse so out of hours care will get worse
The gender pay gap will widen and there will be even fewer female consultants in things like surgery than there are now.
Good Drs will leave the country or the profession. Not all of them of course but over time quality is likely to reduce. Some less popular specialties in less popular areas are already dependent on Drs from Eastern Europe who may be very good but may not speak English, understand the NHS or have equivalent training Dr Daniel Ubani anyone?

Another doctor here. I came into medicine late because I was in love with the idea of doing it. I think though that I would tell my kids to think very carefully before going into it now, and I think a career in business or law for someone of equivalent talent would likely be better rewarded with better working conditions.

I remember being on call one Christmas day, the only doctor in the hospital, and working out I was being paid less than £3 an hour IIRC, less than the Mon-Fri wage for a cleaner. No food available in the hospital either.

Doctors' working conditions then (the early 90s) harkened back to the age of Victorian apprenticeships.

What will happen, I think, is that doctors will have less and less incentive to work in the NHS.

The pension scheme is less and less attractive; people of course don't and shouldn't go to work in the NHS just for the pension, but having a good pension keeps experienced staff around - to run the NHS in fact.

If the juniors' working conditions are trashed there will be little incentive to join the NHS at the start of their career, as well as less and less incentive to remain in the NHS as doctors gain more experience.

It is a disaster.

I read an intersting piece in the paper last week which throws a different light on all of this.
Apparently a lot of doctors have got nice little sidelines going on with weekend non-medical work.
One doctor featured had set up his own wedding photography business where he stressed that he was more than happy to stay on late into the evening on a Saturday to record the dancing.
No wonder he would be dead against working weekends!
So much for being too tired etc etc.

I hope Cameron gets rid of Hunt as health secretary now. You can't have a health secretary who has pissed off the nhs staff to this extent......though I suppose he kept twatface Gove on for ages and all the teachers hated him.

I don't think the OP is a troll. I think the govt spin has made this incredibly confusing. If you look at the JD contract forum (secret militant JD hangout according to daily mail) there are Drs who are confused too. It's deliberately confusing so it is harder for the public to see why we are upset. And I'd be upset that Drs were striking if I had an appt booked for strike day. I find that when I talk to people about the issues they are overwhelmingly supportive.

I read an intersting piece in the paper last week which throws a different light on all of this

Citation needed.

And where is it said a crime to have you own business as long as the work does not impact on paid employment and is done in your own time then you can do whatever the hell you like

The public do not OWN doctors and yes we need money too as we have mortgages families and so on its called having a life

I too am looking into setting up my own business and it has nothing to do with the NHS work I do

The envy on this thread is coming through

The OP and JH are missing the significant point that while a limited number of people have the aptitude to be a doctor, none of them actually have to be a doctor. Good luck with your tests if JH's proposals go through...

Yes I agree there has been a lot of spin but before people come on here making ignorant statements they could do a bit of light reading then they might be better informed

Ha that piece in the paper about drs sidelines was a load of bollocks printed to try to smear the head of the JDC. The Dr that was highlighted already worked weekends and nights as an obstetrician (yup baby's come when they suit themselves not a 9-5) and he just happened to have a hobby which he did when he had any spare time (which he freely admitted to)
You do realise that even overworked drs are not in work 24 hrs 365 days a year. The article was also in uproar that he owned a house in London, how dare he!
Funny how there was uproar about this yet the same weekend barely a mention was made about Jeremy Hunts sideline business making him £14million.

Oh by the way the papers that featured that story were the Sun, the daily mail and the times ( I'll let you draw your own conclusions from this)

Hi Lollipopgirl
So let's inform them rather than being cross. It feels frustrating when we don't want to be striking in the first place- it wasn't us that wanted new contracts- and life as a junior Dr especially if trying to bring up kids ( missing bedtimes, school plays, Christmas anyone?) can be miserable but we don't do ourselves any favours being grumpy. It is very hard to find neutral info to read. Each side has an agenda. But most people trust Drs over politicians at the end of the day and those that don't are entitled to their opinion.

The pension is being gradually, subtly eroded too now.
It is 'career average' not final salary now for new entrants so lower pay out and for higher contributions.
I really don't think any normal young person makes a career choice based on the pension anyway do they? If that is the best we've got it won't drive recruitment.

I was an SHO in 1978 and I remember going on call at 5.00pm on Friday until Monday morning and then back on the ward at 8.30am monday - i covered 4 wards I think and i used to doze in a chair in the lobby because it was easier than trotting the length of the hospital to the grotty room put aside for on-call staff and then do the same route back to write up a scrip. Nurses saved my bacon all the time but I was exhausted. I fully support the juniors

So it was one doctor with a small business/hobby that he sometimes does on weekends?

Rather than "Apparently a lot of doctors have got nice little sidelines going on with weekend non-medical work"

And it was reported in the DM, you say?

Fuck me, people are gullible.

OP, why do you think that it is only people in the private sector who work to pay tax which pays doctors' wages? Do you seriously believe that public sector workers don't pay tax?

I know I know it's just annoying and sometimes I can't help but think some of these threads are more propaganda!

I mean this contract talk came out of no where! But apparently was being secretly talked about for well over a year! I don't even want to strike

Luckily I work in Ophth and to be honest our urgent cases will be dealt with in our eye cas which will be in operation but most other things can actually wait so I'm hoping no patients will come to any harm

In fact I think most consultants are covering lists in order to help us strike which is fine anyway as most lists are consultant led anyway clinics will probably be reduced

It is 'career average' not final salary now for new entrants so lower pay out and for higher contributions

And discriminatory, given the disparity in career trajectories between white men and women/BME.

Also although it is true that job security is good and that the NHS is not hugely likely to get rid of you easily there is the constant terror of the GMC

Most senior Drs have a deep seated fear of ever incurring a GMC complaint. Even if totally unjustified it is guilty until proven innocent. A malicious complaint can destroy your whole career very easily. There was a recent investigation into the high number of Drs who kill themselves whilst involved in GMC proceedings.

That is a special kind of job insecurity. For which you have to pay 400 pounds a year to the GMC to regulate you and more in defence Union fees to defend you if the worst should happen.

Just want to say I support the junior doctors.

I support the junior doctors

Bastards

Having free time

Doing stuff in it

Should be banned

interesting the way you describe "hospitals" as something quite different from doctors. To me, hospitals are places run by doctors, just as law firms are run by lawyers.... Who is running these hospitals?

With every respect, OP, it really is quite bizarre that you believe this to be the case, and I don't think you can brush it off by saying that it isn't obvious to "outsiders". I'm an outsider, but basic reading of newspapers had made me well aware that hospitals are run by hospital trusts, not individual doctors. Law firms tend to be private practices which are owned by the partners who are virtually all lawyers and who have invested money in them. Self-evidently hospitals aren't private medical practices owned by the doctors, and they are not financed by the doctors.

I'm wondering whether it is this very fundamental misconception which is leading to the further misconceptions you have expressed here?

Maintaining a work life balance is an important part of working in such a demanding environment and the doctor you are talking about has done nothing wrong in using his free time to indulge his hobby - if he can manage to make a little extra from it then good for him! Unfortunately the media has set out to smear him in the public eye as he is head of the JDC and pivotal in the current negotiations - branding him as money grabbing / misrepresenting the issue of doctor exhaustion is clearly in the government's interest. Do you think your doctors should just sit at home in their precious free time just waiting to start their next shift?