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?

If a teacher fucks up they don't kill anyone.

Yes GP's have a hard job but the money reflects this. There's a lot of other hard jobs out there where the money doesn't reflect

My partner's Aunt is the only GP at her practice that works full time. Can you father go p/t?

*I’m training starts at around 38,693 to 49, 036 basic plus your banging allowance depending on the job.
Salaried GPs something like 58,808- 88,704

These are good amounts but not huge. *

I think £58 - £88k is a huge amount of money so we'll just have to agree to differ

And again I say, if GPs don't like the pay/stress balance , they can leave and work elsewhere

@JoyFreeCake a teacher is on a lower salary similar to a nurse! If they fuck up ohhh but wait the nurse will get sacked also they get paid a lot less money!

Every job has its problems. I think that there are two main problems;
1: the general public is rude, demanding and self centred
2: the system is inefficient

Obviously not every person you meet will be awful but the problem is it’s the awful ones that stay with you. People seem to be so much more demanding recently, I don’t just mean during the pandemic either. Everyone seems to feel so entitled, I suspect that if every person who saw a GP, or any kind of NHS service, received an invoice which showed them what their visit had actually cost they’d buck their ideas up a bit.
Generally people have zero clue about the costs/time/resources involved in running a surgery. They feel entitled to what they perceive as being owed and that extends far beyond GPs. I work in vet practice, I earn far less than my human medicine counterparts, I can also expect to be guilt tripped, moaned to or about, have had people shout, scream and swear at me. It doesn’t matter what job you do, if it’s a public facing role it seems to involve receiving abuse these days sadly

Your Dad sounds like a good gp, who should perhaps cut back and say no a bit, draw a line under work day, def finish earlier, but mine and a lot of others are total rubbish. Mine is lazy and stupid, but I stay as none are good where I live and I can walk , no parking issues. I use her as a referral service, I go tell her what I want and get referred. I am from a family with a lot of NHS professionals so do know it from both sides too. I have suggested to the BMA they have a secret patient thing!! I might try the CQC to report her
They shut on Thurs pm, by 7.30 every night, most of the time they tell you to go to A&E and when I asked for a home visit as in so much pain she wouldn't come eventually after waiting hours for it ,I had to be rushed by ambulance into hospital with suspected appendicitis

Thursday afternoon I meant

We can only have one thing per consultation, so for instance if I have an issue with two of my joints, same issue, I still have to have 2 app. Most of the time you sit in silence while she types your notes with one finger during your 10 min app!!!!!!
I feel for your Dad, he sounds like someone who cares

Totally agree and whilst your dad might not be a hero, he IS a bloody saint.

There's a huge national shortage of GP's thanks to the conservative government treating them like garbage for the last 8 years and they are currently treating somewhere in the region of 5 x as many patients as they should be as a result.

Their working day must be a nightmare.

I think your dad is an absolute star.

Teachers have a worse deal than G.Ps in my opinion.

This is a thread about gp, there isn’t any need to make comparison and doing so gives a negative appearance of the occupation declaring they have it much worse

Both occupations do a wonderful job and are appreciated very many

@chatterbugmegastar

Yes agree to disagree.

To me it’s about time and money investment in career as well as sacrifices. Please let me know about public facing roles that are

1. Mentally and physically demanding.
2. Cost a significant amount (Typically £1500 on a 2 day course not including travel costs or £1000 to sit and exam).
3. Endless professional subscriptions.
4. Constant need to keep up to date ( I’m currently literature searching for a review research paper I have to write and have reached about 100 articles I have read in my free time).
5. 11-15 years training time before you can even consider applying for a consultant post.

These are a few things that explain the salary and why I don’t think it is a huge amount at that point in your career. Yes of course there are other jobs where people work hard and get paid far less. I have family members who do those jobs. The difference however between career progression and those jobs are the points I listed above.

Teachers have a worse deal than G.Ps in my opinion.

This thread is not about competition between professions.
Teachers, or some teachers, do have a poor deal imo but this is about GPs.

Honestly @BadSmellsHelp101 - if I felt that way about my job, I would look for another one and I'm paid under £30k 😂

@chatterbugmegastar

Felt how though....?

Most of my friends are happy (granted not GPs), don’t complain. The thing is I think it’s about public perception of GPs which is in part driven by the media as well as unrealistic expectations of the NHS. Not to mention increasing demands on the service they want to provide.

Believe me most Drs want to do the best they can for their patients but I think this is why GPs are unhappy. Hence why the NHS is on the brink of collapse and at risk of privatisation.

No they won’t find another job most likely they will either leave and retrain or perhaps look at more lucrative ways of working. As I say the GP friends I have mostly locum. Someone has to do the work.

Above I was just explaining the costs (both time and financial) of training in medicine.

Teachers have a worse deal than GPs in my opinion.

FFS it’s not a race to the bottom. Yes, lots of jobs are hard. Yes, GPs are fairly well paid compared to the national average (though as several PPs have pointed out they have all sorts of costs to pay out of their salary), but there is so much room for improvement in working conditions for GPs (and don’t get me started on those for junior doctors). Surely it’s not hard to understand how having well-supported, rested doctors leads to better patient care and outcomes. Is that not something we all want?

And the solution isn’t to suggest they leave if they hate it so much either, do you know how much it costs the government to train a doctor? If they leave because the job is so unbearable, that investment is lost. Plus, doctors leaving the profession leads to rota gaps, shortages, longer waiting times, worse outcomes for patients etc, which is pretty far from ideal.

If a teacher fucks up they don't kill anyone.

You can't see how, when a teacher is looking after 30 children, anything could go wrong? Like the children in the news, who die from an asthma attack at school; or the boy who died after cheese was thrown at him, when he had an allergy to it? One of DH's suppliers, lost a DC at nursery as they were strangled in an accident.

There's a huge national shortage of GP's thanks to the conservative government treating them like garbage for the last 8 years

GP shortages were a problem back in the 80s, 90s and 00's too. It's NOT a recent thing at all. Back in the 90s, I was with a 2 partner GP practice, both approaching retirement age and they simply couldn't get a new GP to join the practice - they were trying for years and eventually had to merge with a nearby practice just so they could retire. Blair's botched GP contract made things a lot worse. If people want to know why there's a shortage of GPs perhaps they should ask why the doctors union (BMA) opposed proposed increases in the number of training places!

*1. Mentally and physically demanding.

1. Cost a significant amount (Typically £1500 on a 2 day course not including travel costs or £1000 to sit and exam).
2. Endless professional subscriptions.
3. Constant need to keep up to date ( I’m currently literature searching for a review research paper I have to write and have reached about 100 articles I have read in my free time).
4. 11-15 years training time before you can even consider applying for a consultant post.*

Yes, that's pretty similar to accounts and lawyers. You don't get to become a partner by not doing extra unpaid hours, not doing extra unpaid training, not paying your professional subscriptions & insurances, and 10-15 years is a typical time to become a partner.

1.Mentally and physically demanding.
2. Cost a significant amount (Typically £1500 on a 2 day course not including travel costs or £1000 to sit and exam).
3. Endless professional subscriptions.
4. Constant need to keep up to date ( I’m currently literature searching for a review research paper I have to write and have reached about 100 articles I have read in my free time).
5. 11-15 years training time before you can even consider applying for a consultant post.

TBH that doesn't sound massively dissimilar to social work, and the pay in social work is nothing compared to medicine.

DarkMint I knew someone would come up with something like that. It's hardly in the same city, let alone the same ballpark. You could say the same about kitchen staff who need to try not to poison allergy sufferers, or taxi drivers who need to try not to crash, or programmers for whom a programming mistake could lead to lost lives. Yes, just occasionally, a teacher could fuck up and have someone die the same as in many other jobs. But on the whole, teaching's pressures are different.

Yes, that's pretty similar to accounts and lawyers. You don't get to become a partner by not doing extra unpaid hours, not doing extra unpaid training, not paying your professional subscriptions & insurances, and 10-15 years is a typical time to become a partner.

And being seen to do charitable work in your spare time, like getting sponsorship to run in marathons whatever, while wearing your firm’s logo on your t shirt? I forget what it’s called - corporate responsibility?

It seems to be a regional thing. A good friend id a GP - used to be an A&E doctor, and retained as a GP for a better work life balance - and it works. she works 8-5 most days, with some evenings and once every two months weekend shifts (and one half day per week).