Aibu to leave nhs

[WhichUsernameIsLeft]

Ok, so let's start this by acknowledging I am in an extremely fortunate position. DH earns enough to support us (DC ages 1 and 3) so my work is mainly for my intellectual stimulation and my personal need for financial independence. Also the need for a sense of purpose when DC have left home.

Current job is highly demanding surgical role in NHS. Allowed to work part time in theory but reality is that I need to work full time hours (for part time pay) in order to meet training requirements each year (training towards consultant). Job creates huge childcare issues as part time days change six monthly and location changes annually. Not to mention evenings/nights/weekends. This will be the case for 10 years.

Have been offered new non-NHS role, 3 fixed days/week a short distance from home. Pay is double what I'm on now but will never go up hugely (will never meet private surgeon salary). Job is more boring but without all take home/extra work I currently have to do.

So the question is: do I tough out the next 10 years and miss lots of time with DC in order to have better working hours/pay as NHS consultant+ private work in 10 years time? Or do I take local, more boring job to see DC grow up but possibly be unfulfilled once they leave home?

Any thoughts appreciated. Would be particularly keen to hear from parents of older children (benefit of hindsight) and/or doctors. Thank you!

Not a doctor, but someone with hindsight... Children first. Wish I'd taken less notice of the job and more of my DS. Making up for it now, I hope.

I should add, the new job involves early and late shifts but these are workable in terms of childcare because the days are fixed. No nights involved.

I've just finished reading Adam Kays 'This Is Going To Hurt' (all about working as a doctor for NHS), being a doctor for NHS sounds fucking exhausting - and that's from a ftm of a baby who refuses to sleep. oP leave the job, YANBU. i

Definitely the latter

There are many ways of finding fulfilment in our lives but once your DC have grown, there is no way to get that time with them later.

I too work for the nhs part time. I took a job for a private hospital for similar reasons you have been offered - better pay, less pressure, closer to home. I worked for them for 2 years but soon craved the buzz of the nhs and needless to say, I am back with them. All of my training and career had been within nhs and the private sector felt very alien and business-like to me. They also didn't offer the same kind of peer support, in service training or team work.

So so glad to be back within the nhs but if your current job really isn't working to give you a balanced family life, then the sacrifices you may feel you are making might be worth it to have better days/hours and therefore more family time. Good luck, it's a tricky decision.

How much do you want to be a consultant? What about long term pension planning?
Is the other job going to have the same impact as your NHS one?

Be patient with this question: why doesn't your husband go part time so that you can go full time and therefore perhaps qualify sooner? This is assuming your full time salary would compensate for his PT one.

Why is it mostly the women that have these internal debates and decisions to be made?

Nobody on their deathbed say's they wish they had worked more. Kids are little for 5 minutes. You can make the newer job as interesting as you want to, or you can approach it as "this is boring as fuck and beneath me" and get sick of it fast.

Think carefully OP, you sound like you are nearly there.

Being a consultant in a specialist field is an amazing achievement, and should be able to offer the flexibility you need for your family.

I have a chronic illness and my consultant Neurologist and other healthcare professionals I have seen over the years have been brilliant.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the care I have received.

But of course you need to do what is right for you and your family.

Good luck for the future. ☘️

As someone who has been committed to the NHS ( fortunate to be self employed and work in an area where I am the boss and can work around child ) forget the NHS live an easy life and spend time with your children. I am abandoning the NHS to work in private sector soon. I will earn twice the money for half the hours. I have dedicated 30years to the NHS they are not having any more. The cost of indemnity is soaring and support from professional bodies is crap. Go for boring and easy job where you can sleep easy, go on holiday without dreading your return and live life to the full.

Thank you so, so much all for your replies.

Gimble: that book offers the most well-explained insight into what life is truly like as a trainee doctor and I would recommend everyone to read!

Sci: not sure I particularly want to be a consultant at all in the current NHS! Pension better in NHS but many are trying to make as much as they can privately to get out of NHS sooner and I could imagine I would fall into that category.

Regarding husband going part time: the finances don't work out with that option as he earns about 4 times my full time NHS salary.

Yoga: your gratitude towards your health care providers is an example of one of the reasons I stick with NHS. There are not many jobs in which one is genuinely thanked several times a day just for doing what they are employed to do. The question is though...should my patients be getting the benefit of my efforts or should those efforts be focused on my children who will only ever have one mother (versus a patient's numerous doctors!).

Other posters hinting at focus on children more important: this is what my heart tells me.

Sven: extremely interesting perspective, thank you.
THANKS ALL

I quit my training post for a staff grade job nearly six years ago now because I wanted stability and a family life and I have never once regretted it. I earn more than enough to have a comfortable life, I don’t take work home and I don’t have the stress of being a consultant.

There is this mentality in medicine that we must all aspire to be a consultant otherwise we have somehow failed. Letting go of that idea and trusting my instincts instead was a turning point for me and I have been much happier since, although it was scary at the time and everyone told me I was crazy!

OP only you know what’s right for you but my advice would be to listen to what your gut feeling is telling you and don’t be swayed by those who say “oh you’ve come this far/you’ve got the potential/it would be a waste of your hard work” etc. if you don’t believe it’s going to make you happy in the long run.

Darkstar this is exactly what I was hoping to hear, thank you. I'm really glad it has worked out well for you and your family.

OP I have done this journey. I chose to stick it out. Now a consultant surgeon and very happy with my choice.

I have financial independence (also have high earning DH but it's good to have the resilience in case illness etc and my self esteem much better because of it)

I have a job I love, and although full time I get a day off a week and choose not to do PP at present so am at home.

My children see both parents enjoying their careers and more equal because of this.

My children 13 and 9 and I can see the time they will leave and then I can expand my career and pick up PP / education/ leadership etc. Lots of options in the future.

However, it was extremely hard to navigate the Reg years and at 3 and 1yo this is definitely the hardest part. I thought about giving up EVERY DAY for YEARS as it felt so hard. It's much easier when they are at school much of the day so you are not missing out so much.

Things that helped:
-Modular thinking eg this year I'll do a couple of audits. Next year the exam. Not being overwhelmed by all the extra bits to do.
-lots of time off and part time working as Reg

• role models and mentors. Do you have any? Are you a WinS member? There's a conference soon. Does your Deanery have any support for those thinking of leaving? Career advice unit? Could you take an OOPL and try the other job for six months or just have more time off as breathing space?
• it does help doing a job you love to motivate yourself when children on school holidays or occasionally they not wanting you to go to work.

-don't try and do everything. Get cleaner / housekeeper more than once a week if needed, who does laundry/ changes beds / Nanny / someone to cook some days, whatever needed so your free time is enjoying children or doing those PBAs

• plan your placement to units where you will get good training and minimal commute. Network. If you go to the ARCP and have a plan that X hospital will take you and Y to job share then it is usually gratefully accepted as a plan.

PM me if helpful You can get there if you want to!

I was a Dr in NHS, and gave up a long time ago for childcare reasons. I don’t regret that at all because we had no family support, and the children developed chronic illness which would have made work impossible. I also really enjoyed being at home when the kids were young.

But now they’re older, illnesses have improved and I am a bit bored. I also think it would be better if they saw me in a different light. And didn’t take for granted that I’m always available.

With hindsight, I would be going for a part-time post that you enjoy, but that might lead somewhere in the long run, not necessarily to be a Consultant. Many Consultants that I know - especially women - are worn out. A lot falls on mums whether they work or not.

I don’t think I’d necessarily go down the private route - in case of social and professional isolation. If you could get a staff grade type post in the NHS you’d keep up contacts, and in years to come you might be able to evolve that post to something more stimulating.

Anaesthetist with children slightly older than yours now. I went the consultant route but I delayed having children until I had passed all the postgraduate exams.

I was a consultant in the NHS for about 6 months - it wasn't much different to being a registrar. Long days, under resourced teams, trying to squeeze extra cases on to already over booked lists because they'd been cancelled several times before, lack of beds so patients were in makeshift areas of the ward (the linen cupboard in one instance...). I barely saw my husband and children, I had very little work life balance (it was all work) because at home I had to fit in all the other management stuff that I hadn't had time to do during the day.

That was 10 years ago and I can't imagine it's got any better. I moved to NZ and now work manageable hours, with a quick commute (by bike), and see my children so much more than I did in the UK. The importance of being a connected member of your family cannot be overestimated.

How many more years do you have to go? And do you think being a consultant is going to be any better than being a registrar in training?

If DH had been able to support us the way yours can, I would have taken the local/boring job like a shot. As it is, I'm the main wage earner and DH is the SAHP to enable this.

In your situation I would go with your heart. Not all doctors need to end up as consultants and many that do end up burned out, stressed alcoholics. Take the local job, see your children, enjoy living your life. You only get one.

I would take option 2
You need 100% commitment to make it as consultant and you are already wavering. I’m ST7 so I know very well.

I was in almost your position a decade ago, except that I was a medic not a surgeon (and no high earning DH!). I loved my clinical work and the patients, but hated the training treadmill, felt like I was missing my children's childhood and was struggling with stress-related health problems. I took a sabbatical originally and never went back.

I did feel bad about some aspects of my decision at the time - I worried I was squandering my training and felt guilty about walking away from the NHS, and I also worried about regretting my choice down the line. Plus I struggled with the loss of identity for a long time and put a lot of energy into rethinking my career plans, but bear in mind this was against a backdrop of massively improved health and family relations and just general participation in normality, so when I say I struggled, think mild existential angst rather than crushing depression.

I now work in a completely different field. I absolutely love my work, and I'm ambitious and work hard, but it's also very flexible and I put my family and my inner life first, without hesitation and without guilt. Not a single regret.

Wow, this is so helpful and interesting.

Weasle, firstly well done and secondly thank you for the suggestions which I shall be acting on. It is extremely helpful to hear of someone coming through the other side not just intact, but happy.

His, I'm so sorry to hear the NHS consultant part of your career was as you describe. Yes,I had anticipated being a consultant would be better than registrar. I'm very glad to hear things are somewhat better in NZ.

To all the posters, enormous thank you for sharing your stories with such honesty. Interesting that in the end most have been happy with how things have turned out regardless of the path followed.

I'll check back in in a few months to update...

Thanks. I hope you find what's right for you. I hope that might be the NHS. It's one of the greatest things in the UK and only because of the staff. Good luck whatever happens.

I was at the Royal College of Surgeons Museum in Edinburgh and saw this. It made me think of this thread

The NHS isn't a charity but it survives on goodwill, staff go above and beyond daily to look after other people's family and it's quite often at the expense of their own.

You need to weigh up the pros and cons and what you need for your personal fulfilment, it might be working the crazy hours the job demands or perhaps you'll be content with less pressure and more time. I've known several surgeons and anaesthetists question their roles recently and whether the effort is really worth the personal sacrifice especially now that private gigs are becoming harder to come by.

Good luck with your decision making. I don't envy you. I'm currently trying to figure of my next career move once I've finished having children - it's making for hard thinking.

I'm an anaesthetics reg, training LTFT - but actually LTFT (60%), thankfully, I think the gasboard are a bit more enlightened than the cutters when it comes to this sort of thing! I've got about 3.5 years to CCT currently, though we are TTC no.2, so that may get prolonged. For me, training still works, because my non-medic DH does most of the nursery runs, I have grandparents around to help on the odd days he can't, and I've been able to keep my working days the same for the last 18 months and though I'll have to change in Feb, hopefully they'll then stay the same till I finish.

My hospital has a good number of staff grades who have chosen the stability and consistency of those posts over training. There aren't many suitable private opportunities for anaesthetists until CCT apart from working out of hours on private ICUs, which I don't fancy much! What would your private job be? I'd be wary of RSO type jobs in private hospitals, I think I'd hate it, and from some of the referrals I've had into our NHS ICU, I'm not wildly impressed by the quality of care.

Obviously surgery is different and it depends on what's on offer to you, but I'd definitely take an NHS staff grade job over a private sector one. Also leave the CESR route more accessible to you later if you decide to go that way.