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?

It's the worst job out there....I used to be one.

What about teachers? 🤷‍♀️
Most teachers on MN would tell you theirs is the worst (and most stressful) job.
I'm not intelligent enough to do either of these jobs so cant make a judgement

Yeah YANBU. My husband is a GP. He works very hard & worries a lot about his patients. He works 4 days a week (two afternoons off a week) and simply does not have capacity to work any more.

The money is good, but for a point of comparison, my DH did another degree before medicine, his peers from his first degree all went into the City. Their earnings far exceed his. In fact it took several years before his earnings as a doctor exceeded his starting salary on a City grad scheme between his degrees.

I've always thought the GP role must be one of the tougher medical ones. I respect GPs and am glad of the work they do, I agree that changes to funding etc have made it even harder for GPs as the gateway to healthcare for most, I but I don't think that makes it unreasonable as a patient to be unhappy that they can't get an appointment, that the GP only let them talk about two medical conditions in a 10 minute appointment.

Directing anger at the GPs themselves for the series of changes to funding and so on which have left health services and GP surgeries in such a dire state probably isn't on, but neither is expecting people to put up and shut up because it upsets stressed GPs when they don't.

GPs are extremely well paid as are hospital doctors, many of the latter in particular are able to earn large amounts on top of their NHS income by doing private work. They all have the option to work part-time and still be earning considerably more than the majority of people. They also have access to good pension benefits. I am not saying that GPs don't have a hard job or that they don't work hard but they are well-compensated for it. I take the point about city traders and the like but that's a whole other thread.

I wouldn't like to be one and I have a lot of respect for them, but at our doctors surgery each gp only works 1 to 2 days a week. Can your dad not do that?

It’s a bit like being a midwife. The system is shit, the funding is shit, but the workers on the front line are the ones who are in the firing line.

Hoggleludo

To top it al off

I had someone write in my medical notes that I was trying to MAKE myself unwell. That note will never ever come off. Never!!!!! It's forever on my medical records. As is a note that they mixed me up with someone who had social services interaction and thought I'd stolen a child! (You can't make this tuff up! She had the exact same name as me and my birthday except one month!)

Misinformation can be deleted or amended. Put your (understandable) anger and frustration to good use.

I'm STILL TO THIS DAY! Asked about BOTH things.

But also. None of the gp s have ever ever found out about my condition. Or learnt. Or even really knew how to manage it. I've had to become the medical patient who advocates for herself.

The main problem with the "one issue per appointment" thing is that sometimes, apparently unrelated things are actually symptoms of one illness, and as a patient I don't necessarily know whether that's the case or not. And the body is one big complex system of interacting systems and every bit affects ever other bit.

Ideally, and the way most GPs would prefer to work if they could IMO, general practice is the epitome of holistic medicine — your GP is the one drawing together all the info from, say, your neurologist about your epilepsy, your annual diabetes blood tests, and your reports about the side effects of the meds you take for your rheumatoid arthritis, so when you go in there saying you've been feeling run down and low, they should be able to take a broad and nuanced view, utilising all that info and using their skills, expertise, and the fact that they know you and have seen you through all these illnesses, to give you treatment that takes into account you as a whole person and all your various health issues. This is the one of the main benefits of seeing a specialist generalist rather than just going to a specialist for each condition you have and trying to shuttle and combine info yourself.

Of course, in reality, the system means that a lot of people get seven minutes with a stressed and rushed GP they've never seen before, who just really needs to try to get you dealt with as fast as possible and try not to kill you.

Well, at my gp practice the average salary for 5 part time gps who worked there for more than six months was 83,074 £ before tax and national insurance ( information from the webpage of my surgery). It is probably a stressful job, but so are many jobs and it is really well paid.

I have had some weird GPs over the years. I think the worst one told me to snap out of my PND as he felt sorry for my DH for having to put up with me!
I was in contact with a support line at the time and one of the organisers told me that she had given a talk on the subject to local GPs and this particular guy had heckled her throughout, laughing at her and leaning his chair back, folded arms and smirking.

I think the worst one told me to snap out of my PND as he felt sorry for my DH for having to put up with me!

This is actually the result of a complex systemic problem known as "your GP is a right cunt".

Bookmark

Utmost respect to GPs they work their arses off

@JoyFreeCake 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

I have posted about this before and I am usually accused of lying because it doesn’t suit the MN left wing agenda, but DH is a consultant with a private practice and managerial responsibility. He earned over £200k last FY (combined PP and NHS) and rarely works after 7pm.

What left wing agenda does this not suit? Why would people accuse you of lying? I thought it was very well known that consultants can make an absolute fortune in private practice and that not all branches of medicine are going to require antisocial hours?

@RunningAwaywiththeCircus I’m glad you have enlightened us! It sounds about right what you are saying.

• Thing is, you can have a reasonable work/life balance OR a city salary. (Ex-city person here). There’s a reason they are paid so well and it’s not (just) because they are jolly clever. It’s because at law firms, IB’s, big 4 etc the client rules and if the client wants something - however unreasonable - you drop your pants. After 10 years of canceled holidays, 60+ hours without sleep on deals, alopecia and sexist twats - followed by a colleague having a stroke from overwork which none of us noticed for 3 hours - I jacked it in.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of a GP’s working pattern, it’s in an entirely different league to the corporate whoredom in the square mile.

There's a reason why you have the term burnout & often someone earning very high sums in the city can only sustain it for so long plus if your lose a very well paid role in your 50s it can be hard to find the equivalent. It's very different.

I agree. My old GP, an absolutely amazing man who actually took appointments half an hour earlier than anyone else so he could help people who would normally struggle for an appointment. A really wonderful man who helped me so much.

He had mental health problems himself and after taking a year off for poor MH he went back and took all of the practices MH appointments.

I'll never forget the last appointment I had with him, he said that he had no choice but to leave as the choices made by his higher ups made the job almost impossible. He had to move practice so he could move to part time.
He explained that even on his days off he was putting in 12+ hours a day, and it was prevalent NHS wide but he couldnt bring himself to leave the NHS so part time was the only thing that he could do.

Hes such a lovely, lovely person.

He often went above and beyond for me as his patient and I'm certain that there are thousands like him in this country.

On the other hand, I've had to bollock DH before for coping the hump with Drs who hes waited for a call from, and received it late in the day and given them grief for it.

Funding is short, people willing to do the job for the money is short.

And the remuneration (in this area atleast) is shockingly small for the people who make life changing decisions day in, day out.

The GP I spoke of above, told me his wage. I was astounded, as my DH is paid similarly with nowhere near the same training or responsibility

And the remuneration (in this area atleast) is shockingly small for the people who make life changing decisions day in, day out.

One of the reasons given by GPs for reducing their hours is the tax. The older/experienced ones pay 62% tax on earnings between £100k and £125k, so reduce their hours to get below £100k earnings and thus avoid the 62% tax.

Then they get clobbered by tax if their "pension fund" breaches the lifetime limits (currently around £1.2m), so again, reduce their hours so smaller contributions into the NHS superannuation scheme to keep their pension funds under the limit.

It's been a classic foul up by those who want "higher earners" to pay more tax. People don't want to pay punitive taxes, so reduce their working hours, and that's contributed to the shortage of GPs.

YABU. Most people understand how hard doctors work. I once sat for over an hour past my time as the receptionist hadn't registered me as arriving. Even though the GP looked at me each time he came in to call the next person he couldn't take me through until she registered me as arrived. This didn't haven until I went to ask how much longer I would have to wait. Utterly ridiculous. Receptionist didn't apologise.

My feeling is a doctor is running late because they are giving a patient the time they need and therefore I will get the time I need. One doctor I see is always keen to chat and I'm the one trying to stay focussed.

Once my slaughter collapsed while with a nurse and we then took three doctors away from their rooms, two briefly and I hope no one was moaning about a slight delay. Ambulance was called but refused to come on blue lights even through the GP was very worried about her.

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.

Waiting for teachers to come on and tell us their job is harder....

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?