to think that people don't realise how tough it is being a GP?

[naima99]

My dad is a GP. He used to love his job, got home at a reasonable time and had more time to spend with his patients.

Now, he regularly gets to work at 7am and leaves at 9:30pm. He has no time for lunch a lot of the time. He hates that he doesn't have the time he used to have for his patients. He gets tonnes of abuse when he's running late but isn't allowed to say that he's late because his last patient was having a suspected heart attack in front of him, or that he had a child in front of him with undiagnosed diabetes whose life was in danger etc. He's lost so many staff members because they're all fed up. He has no life outside of work because he is working on the weekends as they're so short staffed.

He knows so many doctors in the same position.

Now I'm not claiming that GPs are heroes or deserve any more than the rest of us, but I hear them being slated so so much.

People get angry that they can't get an appointment, that the GP only let them talk about two medical conditions in a 10 minute appointment, that google told them something different so the GP must be wrong which results in complaints or anger directed towards them. I was on a conference call the other day when my colleagues randomly started slaying GPs and them not seeing people face to face during covid saying they need to 'man up'

I don't know if IABU to think that a lot of people don't quite understand that appointments in the surgery are such a small part of being a GP, and that it is a pretty gruelling job at times. Maybe I am just being protective over my dad as I can see him falling apart in front of me.

Does anyone agree or AIBU?

Fangtasia2020 Wed 24-Jun-20 17:08:04
Oh boo bloody hoo. I would think that their are many jobs harder than a gp's. They get paid well. I would expect them to work hard for it.
..............

A full time GP is not paid that well, honestly.

Agree, thank god we have them.

There a people working those hours for minimum wage - GP’s earn enough to go part time if they wish. Stop whinging.

@sammylady37

I absolutely despise the attitude that because you are well paid you should put up and shut up. This is what contributes to institutional/corporate abuse of employees, leads to huge stress and burn out and eventually drives people to leave for better terms & conditions elsewhere.

When I was a junior doctor, I regularly did entire weekends on call. What that meant was doing a regular day’s work on the Friday, then being on-call from 5pm on Friday right through until 9am on Monday, then doing a normal day again on Monday. There was no built-in break, no protected time off, no guaranteed quiet time. You would be lucky to get 1 hour uninterrupted sleep. It was utterly horrendous. We were expected to make life-saving decisions and carry out life-saving treatment when we were exhausted. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Pilots or truck drivers wouldn’t have been allowed do the hours we did, in fact they’d have been prosecuted for doing it. But our corporate employer had no interest in our welfare, the attitude we got was “at least you’re paid for it, the NCHDs weren’t paid for all their overtime up until 5 years ago” etc. There was more than one colleague who committed suicide during this time and I’ve no doubt this attitude and experience contributed, but hey, they were paid so what about it?

This 100%

Of the doctors I know well, one has had a nervous breakdown and one is a functioning alcoholic. Another is, I believe, on the verge of a breakdown. There was also a young GP near here who committed suicide and pressure of work was cited at the inquest as a major contributory factor

It is absolutely not acceptable to treat people like expendable commodities.

I've worked in the public sector and the private sector and from what I can see, there has been a complete reversal in valuing staff and caring for them as individuals. Public sector staff are treated like highly pressurised corporate staff were years ago, saddled with targets and KPI's and micromanaged into nervous breakdowns or worse.

I also think, if you have contact as a patient or colleague, you can see the levels of stress, anxiety and detachment as a coping strategy in medical staff (and teachers, social workers, police, fire service, ambulance crew and public transport workers). They're people just like the rest of us.

Yes Junior doctors have to work long hard hours with little sleep. But they are usually young and can cope, it’s a means to an end and they can see the big picture of being a well paid consultant And sitting pretty for life on a big salary. Most do a couple of days private to boost income. So yes, it’s hard work early in as a junior doc but they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, for some, it’s just hard work, on low pay, forever, until they die.

I'd be willing to bet that all of the snide responses here are written by people who wouldn't know responsibility or accountability if it bit them (and then they'd go straight to A+E)
I left GP as it was an administrative nightmare with shrinking autonomy, with the qualifications doctors have there are many options. Unfortunately now it seems patients want a GP to be constantly available, up to date with whatever nonsense they read online, a modern day confessional service and somehow able to influence what DWP and their local council decide.
It's not possible

I had a fantastic GP as a child up until about 5 years ago when are retired. Then GPs didnt stick around, a few months at the most. I moved 2 years ago and the GP is useless. My son has a rare medical condition which is not well known among the medical profession. One of is many possible symptoms is the inability to sleep. He was diagnosed just before my lovely GP retire. Then having to go through everything every couple of months as GPs changed and never getting anywhere as I was told to "try this first, then I'll refer him" but the GP was gone by that time so no referral. My current GP has refused to even consider a referral just suggests I "retrain his brain" meanwhile I am struggling with a 6 year old who sleeps like a newborn.
While I do understand that there is alot of behind the scenes work, there are times I have wanted to scream and shout at whichever GP but I just don't have the energy.

I think that the NHS as a whole is massively under appreciated. It’s certainly not a perfect system but all I ever hear is the negative. In fact the media concentrate on that aspect so much it’s no wonder that some people struggle to see anything else. The whole system is breaking and in part I do blame us, the public. People google but rarely try home remedies and would rather the quickest fix possible. That’s understandable until you look at realise a lot of the population demand a the same thing. These days we are more focused on what we ‘want’ instead of ‘need’. I have lost count of the number who demand scans, bloods and xrays because they want one. I wonder often if people would still genuinely want these investigations and prescriptions if they actually had to pay the full cost of them. Whilst it obviously needs lots of work most GP’s, nurses and other other NHS staff work damned hard and often feel guilt at what they cannot achieve. My DH is an A&E nurse and suffered a breakdown 12 months ago over lots of things but his main issue was he kept going over what else he could do. He works hard under extreme pressure and that is sadly the reality of working frontline in healthcare.

Fortunately I haven't had many visits to my GP (or other GP's in the same practice) over the years. I do appreciate them and know that they work really hard under quite difficult circumstances. My first words when I enter the consulting room is to politely ask after their health & how are they, before mentioning my ills.

@Toomuchtrouble4me

Yes Junior doctors have to work long hard hours with little sleep. But they are usually young and can cope, it’s a means to an end and they can see the big picture of being a well paid consultant And sitting pretty for life on a big salary. Most do a couple of days private to boost income. So yes, it’s hard work early in as a junior doc but they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, for some, it’s just hard work, on low pay, forever, until they die.

Where have you got your information from about private work? It's incorrect.

Actually, it is a minority of Consultants who do private work, certainly not 2 whole days! Many Consultants still work extremely hard for the NHS and do an awful lot of out of hours emergency work. It isn't all about huge salaries and golf.

I would agree that GPs are often under appreciated for what they do. Many have gone part time because of the workload and stress and recruitment has been a problem for years.

Overall, if earning a huge salary is a priority there are many other fields which pay top achievers higher salaries and are less stressful.

For those who've been sneering at PT GPs who don't perform all sessions so have it easy, do you think practices don't need the input of GPs into management outside session time? Also, who do you think staff hubs and walk-ins, if you have those in your area run by primary?

Yes Junior doctors have to work long hard hours with little sleep. But they are usually young and can cope, it’s a means to an end and they can see the big picture of being a well paid consultant And sitting pretty for life on a big salary. Most do a couple of days private to boost income. So yes, it’s hard work early in as a junior doc but they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, for some, it’s just hard work, on low pay, forever, until they die

Congratulations on spectacularly missing my point. Expecting junior docs to suck up the terrible conditions because they’ll hopefully attain consultant level one day is nothing short of abuse.
Being young is irrelevant- sleep deprivation is literally a form of torture, no matter the person’s age. And btw, your impression of life as a consultant is more than a little wide of the mark. I’ve had colleagues commit suicide because of the pressures of the job. The prospect of “sitting pretty” as a consultant wasn’t enough of a carrot, funnily enough.

2 of the GP's at the small surgery I go to are amazing. They are friendly, inviting and super helpful. There is 1 that is horrible and she is the only 1 you can ever get an appointment for because nobody wants to see her. She is rude, dismissive and generally just a cow. Children she is good with, but adults terrible. Whenever I have seen her I have come out feeling worse than when I went in. The first experience of her (which might be outing) was when I was 18, a close family member died, young and unexpectedly, this caused me to become depressed and I didnt want to leave the house, so my DF took me to see her she asked me 3 questions How old are you? What University do you go to? And Are you still living at home? She then just said oh your depressed because you are still living at home go to University and you will be fine. No I was depressed because someone I was very close to had died and I was terrified to leave my parents side incase they died too. She didnt even offer me any help or counselling and after her I was too scared to go anywhere else to ask for help.
As I said the other 2 GP's there are amazing and were really supportive when I had PND. They also will allow more than 1 problem even though for more than 1 you should have a double appointment.
Good GP's do an amazing job it is the same old story though it is the couple of bad ones that give the rest a bad reputation.
Sorry that was really long 🙈

I don’t imagine a GP has an easy time at all. I think the system is broken though. When we moved to our medium sized village there were 3 full time GP’s, plus a Whole team of nurses over 2 Surgery based. Now, our village has grown but the Surgery only has 1 base, 1 part time GP, a couple of part time Nurse practitioners and 2 nurses - incidentally only one of these is female. Appointments are near impossible yet when you do get one there is never anyone else in the building :( - obviously all this was before Covid but I can’t imagine it’s any better now.

I’m sorry but do all those saying they should just go part time have any idea on the repercussions this would have on the health of the public? You think it’s hard to get an appointment now? You think it’s awful they can only spend 10 minutes with you now? There’s a serious recruitment and retainment crisis in most public sector jobs. Without these people we all suffer. Rather then pissing and moaning that they get paid a lot for the job so should shut it we should acknowledge that they deserve the high salary as have trained for 12 years and their job is vital. Yes there are a few crap gp’s but if the government stopped making the job so fucking unappealing maybe it’d Be easier to get rid of those ones and replace them with better ones.

@RunningAwaywiththeCircus
*Pretty standard at junior levels of all decently-paid professions ime. See what hours they work at IB’s - and their chances of “making it” are significantly lower than in medicine. They don’t even benefit from the WTD like the NHS does.

Describing it as abuse is total histrionics. Depressing but not surprising, given your job*

I don’t think it’s either histrionic or depressing to describe working for 80 hours with no protected break/rest time, particularly when that work involves huge responsibility, such as making life-or-death decisions for which you will be held accountable, as abuse. If you do consider that to be histrionics, I’d be curious to know what you do consider to be abuse?

I've been a doctor for 25 years this year. I trained as a GP and did that for 14 years. I now work in palliative care - I certainly don't do that for the money! All these people sneering and saying well, they're paid well - have a go! I love my job now, GP totally wrecked me. We make decisions you don't have to make on a daily basis, and when we're human and get something wrong, the public annihilate us.

I'm an allied health professional who runs clinics in GP surgeries or did pre Covid as part of my job, I work alongside GPs a lot. It is bloody hard job but they paid a shit ton of money compared to most hospital doctors so swings and roundabouts I guess.

To the people saying GP's are paid well...

I worked in the City for 12 years, money was fantastic, hours were not, stress very high, work/life balance awful! Money isn't everything, quality of life is!

I got out of the 'wages trap' thing and couldn't be happier, like most City people who do the same after around 15 years!

We make decisions you don't have to make on a daily basis

And? I make decisions you don't have ti make on a daily basis and I am in a profession that attracts regular criticism and blame. There are facebook groups set up to target individuals and many of us are attacked every year. We too bear a lot of responsibility and work damn hard. And we get paid a lot less than doctors. Most people get paid a lot less than doctors, of course the relatively high wages of doctors will come up in a discussion about how hard doctors have it.

I appreciate that other people do hard jobs with difficult decisions as well. This thread was about GPs though. And sometimes, no it's not worth the money!

A "part time" GP is usually 3 x 13 hr days - same as full time hours of most other professions.
And £55K for the life/death decisions and 10yrs plus training and debt.
I earned more as a project manager with way less responsibility than my GP colleagues.
They aren't earning £150k plus. Every GP practice must publish its average GP earnings - have a look if you think they're minted!

My daughter and her fiancé work all week as GPs but work every other weekend in addition to pay the mortgage.
They have pretty poor conditions all through the ten year minimum training. Little control over where in the country they work even. Long, long hours. Dreadful shift patterns.

I do think the hours doctors work needs looking at. As someone said upthread those in 'responsible' roles, meaning something v bad happens if they fall asleep say (drivers, pilots etc.) have protected time off. Doctors don't seem to unless I'm wrong on that? Happy to be corrected.

Got no problem with doctor salaries and in most cases expect they should be more.