To wonder why we treat our Junior Doctors so badly?

[alfredomuretto]

These people have likely been the very brightest in their school, got very high grades, struggled through 5 years of university (£9k fees). Then they get to enjoy two years of being a junior doctor. They have to work very long hours, in appalling stressful conditions, direly understaffed, with nurses treated just as badly. Then they get a starting salary of £27k.

Why aren't we valuing them better?

I work in a call centre, work my shift and go home and don’t have to think about my job, have mostly nice customers who I’m mostly empowered to help, have never had a customer punch me, vomit on me, and if they swear at me I can terminate the call.

Dammit posted too soon

My point was, for that I’m paid less than a junior doctor but not massively less.

£27K is really not very much for the people who’s mistakes (due to being under so much pressure, not having rested etc) cost lives.

Well no Sandra, when you were having great teenage years with Donna drinking and getting 7 GCSEs at C, the future junior doctor was studying hard.

This is a really nasty, superior attitude. It won't change the minds of anyone who disagrees with you and puts off those if us who tend to sympathise with the position junior doctors are in.

A huge number of students work damn hard to get 7 Cs at GCSE.

Junior doctors are not junior forever.

Have you seen a junior doctor lately?
they are So very young

If an organisation doesn't value its staff, the staff learn not to values the customer. In health, that's a problem for us all.

Horace, if you think 40 year old women are “so very young”, with all due respect I think you might be getting on a bit yourself.

People often assume the grey-haired registrar is the consultant. Because “we’re too old to still be a junior doctor”.

I agree Horace. They look like school work experience. I’m just jealous cos I’m getting on a bit at ripe old age of 40!!!

Have a read of "This is Going to Hurt" by Adam Kay. Gives a glimpse into the torturous life of doctors all the way up to consultant, while keeping it humorous for the most part.

Any work in healthcare is hard. I’m an MRT, work bloody long hours, on call etc and tend to get treated like shit by doctors and nurses. Nurses are some of the biggest bullies around. Especially in ED. I don’t get it. If you hate your job just leave, don’t take it out on everyone else.

Horace - I am a junior doctor and will be for another two years. I am 41 years old and started Med school aged 18 and have been a junior doctor now for 17 years in a surgical specialty. I did two years of management/ research , had two babies with a year out for each and work 80%. It’s still a very long time. I do major operations unsupervised die to my seniority. The NHS treat us very poorly. For example - the on calls ie nights / weekends are called non resident to reduce costs but we need to be within 20 mins so are provided with a room with a camp bed . Sheets frequently not changed and may have been slept in by a colleague who collapsed into bed with bloody scrubs. We do far more hours than we are paid for. I spent my annual leave studying 8 hours a day for an exam that I have paid £1800 for the privilege to sit. I will have spent over £1000 on training courses this year. I paid £1600 for magnifying glasses to operate - classed as a personal expense .
Next year I will be required to work 2 and a half hours from home ( within my Deanery so I have to suck it up) and in order to do so will have to rent a flat and pay a live in nanny as my husband also has a job and the children are settled in schools and I don’t want to move them twice in 12 months. This will leave me with hardly any pay out of my salary. My 3 year old thinks that my husband and I take turns to spend the night at home.
Adam Kay trained at the same medical school and was a contemporary and I had many of the same experiences .
I do enjoy my job as I like the work and people but honestly if I had my time again as a student with 4 grade As at A level there are so many other careers I could have chosen. I would not encourage my children to do Medicine or nursing.

Sorry about my rant!

Well no Sandra, when you were having great teenage years with Donna drinking and getting 7 GCSEs at C, the future junior doctor was studying hard.

As an aside, am I the only one to notice that when people do that rhetorical thing of 'Well no (insert name)' they always choose a working class woman's name to patronise?

Well no Sandra, when you were having great teenage years with Donna drinking and getting 7 GCSEs at C, the future junior doctor was studying hard.

I know so many doctors who think the working classes are hilarious.

Pity so many of their patients are less than immaculately upper middle class really. Must be ghastly for them.

What everyone seems to miss, in discussions like this, is that rotas and training are designed by OTHER DOCTORS. Ie people who have been through a similar experience (or worse) themselves and are best placed to know what JDs need in terms of training and support.

I'm an RN and agree it's appalling they way they are treated. Anyone who thinks foundation years are simply learning on the job are in for a big shock. They are thrown in the deep end. They have to make decisions that I with a decades experience wouldn't like to make. Whoever said they are maxed at 48 hours hasn't realised the extra that some do unpaid after their shift to ensure patients remain safe. 1 junior doctor on a weekend to cover an entire hospital of surgical patients. 1 junior to cover an entire medical floor. It's dangerous and I don't know how they do it especially the so much responsibility for shite pay

It is interesting - most of the new junior docs work 48 hours. The 27K is basic and on top there will be banding usually at 40% and for some a bit for London weighting so ends up about 40K.
There is much more emphasis on leaving on time in the Foundation years and the majority do leave on time. The Registrars however working in their planned careers stay much longer than their allocated hours and generally (of course there are exceptions to all of this) complain much less.
Yes its tough but I don't think the expectation was ever that it is an easy job. Lots of jobs are hard especially at the early stages and many graduates apply for hundreds of jobs before they get even one. Most doctors end up on a good wage with an interesting job - a relatively rare combination. The 100K quoted upstream is not unusual.
My sympathies are much more to other members of the NHS team who also work long and unsociable hours without the (eventual) salary and kudos

As previously stipulated, many of us will be “junior doctors” for our entire careers. I’m nearing 40 in a surgical speciality and have chosen not to be a consultant. The pay is not a particular issue for me (6 figures?! Only if you include private work) but the hours, stress and bureacracy are frustrating. I had to argue and put my foot down on numerous occasions because I didn’t feel safe having had two hours sleep in 28 hrs to do my days work. This was recent too so it’s not all wonderful now compared to the old days.

Agree @olympics
I have to say - I do think ward nurses have it bad as well - they are stretched v thinly because of complex patients (eg dementia, those who need large amounts of personal care due to being bedbound). They have bad rota gaps which are filled by locus unfamiliar with the ward (don’t have computer access or know the codes to the doors). This makes working intolerable and regular staff leave to other branches of nursing exacerbating the staffing crisis. Poor retention of nurses is why govt policy of just ‘training more nurses than ever before’ is doomed to fail.

It’s not a competition which job is worse - and i’m sure paramedics and theatre staff also have it bad too. Just makes me wonder who on earth organises all of this?

Oh cheby that’s so funny. My job plan is determined by a non-clinical manager who very much has their eye on the finances. The juniors rota is done by a non clinical manager who sees no issue with scheduling three back to back Oncall’s so long as the 26 week period is vaguely adhered to.

And there is no banding anymore.

I think you will find that top students who are A plus or the now equivalent and go in to a good university will generally exceed the salary expectations of junior doctors. And those that go on to be doctors are A*.

What the private sector graduates won't have to put up with is the disgusting pensions wheeze that hits senior doctors who, yes are in a good salary but means their pensions tax exceed by far any extra money they earn. Whilst yes, it isn't just doctors this affects, what it means is that as they are public sector they have to suck it whereas the private sector are able to adjust and remunerate in other ways.

I know there is limited sympathy for a consultant who may earn 6 figures, but there needs to be an understanding that for graduates of this level the market is competitive and more people are leaving medicine which is tragedy.

Treasury wheezes such as this always end up clobbering the public sector with no regard for consequences.

Oh...I'm not a doctor by the way but a friend is who has explained it very clearly. She is a consultant and is at the point of withdrawing from the NHS pension scheme and as she said, I may as well focus more on private work which is far more lucrative and better able to deal with the tax issues

I know of several young women who gave up as they couldn't cope with the stress and exhaustion of the foundation years.
Did they have the wrong temperament for the job, or are the demands of the job excessive, especially given that they are dealing with life and death? We're told that in other countries - Canada was mentioned above - the conditions are much better.
I know I'd prefer to be treated by people who have had a decent rest and are not stupefied with exhaustion.

Moreisno
Banding is certainly still going for all junior docs I know

In this country we do have a bit of an old fashioned attitude. Rather like public school where you had to differ and tough it out until you became a prefect. This attitude still seems to prevail in the NHS. Which is a shame; as per the PP talking about medicine in Canada; there is no reason on Earth it has to be like this, just a set of old fashioned values which says treating people like this will toughen them up. Or send them out of the profession. If the whole medical profession was a bit kinder then maybe a few less doctors/ nurses/ midwives/ other staff would stay rather than leave or work in the private sector.