to think that all GP's (Doctors) work part-time?

[popcornwizard]

Based on my tiny personal knowledge of 4 GP's that are friends, and a couple of others that are friends of friends etc, I'm coming to the conclusion that they all work part-time hours. Is this real? Or is it just the ones that I know. I have no idea whether any of the GP's at 'my' practice work full-time or not, but at least 3 of them work only two days/week.

So AIBU to think that they're a bunch of part-timers? And what causes this? Stress or lucrative locum contracts?

Is that you, Jeremy?

There is no GP at my surgery who works anymore than 3 days a week.

What other profession can men and women do this in their 30s? Madness.

It makes continuity of seeing the same GP incredibly hard. I had to change GPs recently as mine went down to 1 day a week.

I'm just wondering, as a PT worker yourself OP, how many hours do you work and over how many days? It doesn't seem like you are actually reading what people are saying about what PT hours actually are for a GP.

In my practice it is worked in sessions. Morning and afternoon. On top of this you will have home visits, nursing homes, referrals, results And telephone consultations. So working 3 days can easily be 36+ hours. Most practices are open 8-6.

And re the debate about doctors in general - I will get flamed for this but I don't think they have any more stress than other professional jobs e.g. lawyers. My husband and I always work at least 55 hour weeks and we don't moan about it...it is what is expected in our job.

There is no GP at my surgery who works anymore than 3 days a week.

What other profession can men and women do this in their 30s? Madness.

DS2 (21) is a staff nurse in A&E. Sometimes he can get all his full time hours in over 3 days. He will do overtime if offered, or he feels like it, but tbh they need the time off between shifts. I worry all the time about him and how long he's going to be able to keep it up for. The madness is the shortage of staff.

And re the debate about doctors in general - I will get flamed for this but I don't think they have any more stress than other professional jobs

Fuck. Off. How many lives do you save on a day to day basis eh?

I have a relative who is a GP. On a full-time (2 session day) they work from 8 in the morning to 9 at night, on the 1 session "part time days, more like from 8-4. Some days they don't get a lunch break. Some days they go back in after everyone else has left the surgery so they can do more paperwork.Then there are practice meetings, and meetings with the LHA.

It's technically "part time," but when it's possible to work more than 40 hours in a six session week, it's a bit ridiculous to expect many to be able to manage ten.

Any sane GP works part time. I would. I am a doctor myself and lots of my friends are GPs, as is my mother.

Normal GP day is AT LEAST 8-6.30, often later. So my friends who do 6 sessions (i.e. 3 days) typically have contracts for 30-32hrs/wk. I wouldn't say it is that part-time. 5 days would be 60hrs roughly. Currently the european working time directive requires employees to work

Yes YABVU

I've a couple of friends who are GPs

One who recently finished her training, she works 6 sessions a week ie 3 days, and then does at least another 2 or 3 days 'out of hours' shifts.

She works many many hours a week, I hardly ever see her now, compared with when she was a trainee!

I think the tone of your post suggests that GPs are somehow work shy/lazy which I'm pretty certain is not the case from what I've observed

@christmaschristmaschristmas

Can't believe that you are saying being a lawyer is more stressful than a GP. Are you really saying that making a mistake in your job could cost someone their health or life?

I've worked in engineering and worked 60 hour weeks as standard. But I was very grateful that few of the projects I worked on were life-critical when I was tired.

As tax payers fund doctors very expensive training, I think it is entirely appropriate to make them contractually obliged to work full time. Or else they should start paying back the money we have spent training them into their very well remunerated jobs.

Oh, to add, my part-time contract in psychiatry (which is 3 days plus on-call) is 32hrs/week. I just about cover the childcare for 2 kids post-tax. No different for my GP friends. I fall over laughing at the idea GPs work part time because it is so well paid.

Some GP partners who are in it for the business side do earn a fortune. Not the vast majority of salaried GPs; they are on more like a hospital specialist registrar's salary.

Also, GPs are people too- with their own lives, families, pressures etc

I totally get why a significant number wish to practise on a 'part-time' basis in order to keep their sanity and see their families

From what I've seen and heard, 'part-time' in the world of medicine bears little correlation to the PT work patterns that I imagine many on here are thinking of

@Walkingdeadfangirl

I think there is a rather large disconnect between what people think GPs earn and what they do in reality

@walkingdeadfangirl

Do you know how much doctors earn? Clearly not. Starting salary is approx £22,000.

THe training is 6 years (student) + 2 compulsory foundation years of work (almost 100% do that ful time) + specialist training (3-8 years on graded salary scale).

My training from start of medical school to consultant will have taken 15 years. Well, it would have if I hadn't taken maternity leave etc. I earn £35,000 currently.

I'm sure you work at least 1000 hours a week and earn tuppence. Thanks for your tax money that helped me train though; I appreciate it.

@Walkingdeadfangirl

Do you think that British tax payers fund training for all the doctors who come over here to work in the nhs from overseas?

No, they don't.

Do you think British medical students get all their training for free?

No, they don't.

As a full day as a GP is 8am to 9pm at least, I don’t think they should be working full time, it wouldn’t be a safe workload IMO.

Very few if any GPs work the hours they did 40 years ago when they did all their own out of hours/ night calls 40 years ago, even 10 years ago, work intensity was far less. The average number of patient consultations per year has doubled in a decade. 10 years ago, GPs might go all night on call without being woken. GPs usually had a break of several hours during the middle of the day. Now most GPs don't even get a coffee with colleagues during the day. It is impossible to work 12 hours a day then work all night - it is unsafe for patients or doctors. Would you want a doctor who had done that looking after you?

It's all contracted out to out of hours service Which is staffed by...GPs. It's a more efficient staffing arrangement than every practice staffing having a GP on call.

Gps are paid very good money - over £100K A whole-time GP partner typically earns the equivalent of a £84k salary- the 100k figure is gross of NI etc. A salaried GP earns from £64-75k. Now that's still good money, but you have to factor in the £70k of debt from medical school and the fact that GPs pay £10-20k per year in medical indemnity fees.

They don't work any harder I'd say than many professionals on 6-figure incomes They don't earn 6 figure incomes (see above), they often have up to 100 patient contacts a day and every apparently trivial problem might be early sepsis or a cancer. Female GPs have 3 times the suicide rate of the general population.

Part time means it's often very hard for a patient to get continuity as illnesses don't occur at the same time as a GP is available. The days when GPs had 1 day off a week or half a day so you could rely on seeing 'your' GP are long gone. You can't see your GP because there aren't enough GPs. One reason there aren't enough GPs is because they are sick of being blamed for under-investment in the NHS, so are retiring and emigrating.

The days of seeing your family dr are over and sadly it's the patients who are getting the bad deal 99% of GPs would agree with you. We went into the job to be family doctors. We are confronted by the impossibility of delivering good quality care - due to under-funding- every hour of every day, and we see patients suffer as a result. Do you think we fucking like it?

I think most GPs would love a job in the 1950s - much lower pay, much higher respect, attending child-births, getting to know families......I want to be a GP in the 1950s, in fact....

Walkingdeadfangirl. Yes let’s put the next generation of doctors off! There’s already a recruitment and retention crisis. That must be because of their huge salaries and part time hours. Or because their jobs aren’t stressful at all.
Doctors work ridiculous hours and can put someone’s life at risk with a tiny human error so no pressure there.
And they still have years of maintenance loans to pay off.
I think we should be encouraging them not telling them they are lazy for not wanting to work over 60 hours a week.

I'm just wondering, as a PT worker yourself OP, how many hours do you work and over how many days?

I work everyday apart from a two week holiday each year. A typical week is about 20-25 hours over 7 days, busy weeks is up to about 100. Not sure why this is relevant? Today it's been 8-5.30 but I've been on the phone a LOT (mn when on hold ). Might stop now, or might do another 3 or 4 hours later. It's a busier than normal week. Self employed. Any other (ir)relevant details required?

GP has long been thought of as more 'female friendly' for those women that have kids. And women with kids tend to need more part time hours. Not so they can sit on their arse, but because, as is shown on here time and time again, even with a supportive DH women end up with the mental load and most of the physical domestic load too.
GP's work hard, I don't think anyone has an argument against that.

I worked full time for 20 years averaging 65-102 hour weeks over that time before going part time. I earn well under than 50 k fte. I believe I have paid for my training.... I. Sorry you are offended by my pay for which I trained for 10 years, take huge responsibility and live in daily fear of making a mistake through shear mountains of difficult work and not enough time to do it. Feel free to train as a Dr if you wish... oh and lawyers may work part time too should they choose to.