To tell you that a newly qualified doctor only earns £29k?

[Drstrike]

Doctors now leave medical school after 5/6 gruelling years of study - with £85k of student debt.

First year post-qualification is £29k, rising to £33k the following year. Then things stagnate around £40k whilst in specialty training.

The first year post-qualification is more supervised. But you are still the first doctor to be bleeped if one of your ward patients starts bleeding post-op, falls and hits their head, has chest pain etc. and you are the one to initiate management then contact your consultant to let them know. You are still covering wards overnight with seniors at a distance. You are still prescribing medications, ordering scans involving radiation, explaining plans to patients and families. You are still a fully qualified doctor - just not with full registration.

This salary is based on a 40-48 hour full time week depending on rota. That means you can be "part time" working 40hrs a week in a job like surgery.

It takes 5/6 years of medical school, 2 years of foundation training, 3 years of core training and 3 years of higher specialty training to become a consultant. That's a commitment of 13 years, generally from the age of 18.

During this time doctors have to pay for their own progression exams (£500-£1000 each).

There are out of hours premia for nights/weekends on top, but in specialties like psychiatry and GP only basic is earnt.

Does this shock you?

But who is going to want to do the job, or continue behind a few years, when the conditions remain so bad from underfunding of the NHS?

Even those who have no interest in money will be driven away by the appalling conditions.

When people work in appalling conditions, they look at alternative jobs. When they see much better conditions and life-work balance AND better pay for their age group, it’s not surprising if they head off in increasing numbers.

People assume there will always be a large supply of people wanting to be medics and also wanting to stay in medicine beyond the early years. It’s an assumption that probably won’t hold true for more than a few years. And isn’t that what the real issue is.

Well said @HostessTrolley

How many of the entrants to medical school will end up staying in the NHS to make it to the high salaries? A huge percentage will burnout and leave.

My DD is one of those competing for the 6000 places this year and while she has high hopes for her NHS career and a great desire to help others, I’ll be hoping she finds a side path into a career that allows her to have a bit of a life at the same time, or in a different country that treats its medical staff better. It’s not about wages: working conditions are much more important, imo.

Where I live, we have nurses leaving the profession to work in Tesco so they can have better conditions and some semblance of work/life balance.

It’s not a war between doctors and sanitation workers…why do people try to reduce it to this!? They are all essential workers and deserve fair wages and conditions. Would a refuse collector put up with being denied leave for his/her own wedding? I suspect most would just quit and look for another job!

Agree tbh. It's a starting salary.

OP, no one was saying that doctors and binmen should be on the same wage. People are just pointing out that a lot of people do crucial jobs and don't get paid enough for it. Bin men no doubt definitely deserve a raise, not as much as a doctor's salary, but definitely they deserve a raise.

An experienced binman earns £25k - that isn't far off the £29k that is apparently more than enough for a doctor.

Yes, Hostess Trolley raises the key points.

With terrible conditions getting worse, putting up with it because there will be good pay in another 10/15 years isn’t tenable.

In that sense, all the pay in the world probably won’t help that much if the issues of chronic underfunding aren’t addressed…..because who wants to do a vital job that they can’t succeed in and actually deliver safe healthcare for their patients, and have a life, regardless of the wages?

Lots of jobs require long long hours before there is a rise in pay to good levels. Most of them don’t put you in a position of delivering unsafe care to people that risks their health or life. They also don’t put you in a position where you can’t know where you will be living for many years after graduation.

@Peachy2005 mine is a 4th year, currently intercalating at a London uni. She starts her 5th year in mid July (rather than the standard uni year of October), and has a packed out 21 week term, with a two weeks off for Christmas but exams straight after so not really a break.

She's lucky enough to have a very understanding partner but they are both eager to start a family - and can't seem to work out a good timeframe. I'd imagine that many of the people spouting about 'greedy doctors' had some kind of social life pre kids, the ability to book holidays with a degree of choice about it, and the option to start a family before about the age of 32...

The OP might have focussed on the money, but as far as the strike goes the money is the thin edge of the wedge. Talking about the issues in full doesn't grab the headlines as much as 'greedy overpaid people who might eventually go on to earn a high salary want more cash'

£29k is 16% more, but also at that wage represents a considerably bigger increase in disposable income. I am sure Bin men wouldn’t consider it as ‘isn’t far off’ their wage.

@Newstartonwards interested what field your BIL is in to earn 100K in the NHS working only 2 days

And for the other PP who was saying a full time GP job is 3 days? It's not. A session is half a day. So if you think full time is 10 sessions , I don't know how you think this can be done over 3 days

It's almost like these people don't exist.

An experienced binman earns £25k - that isn't far off the £29k that is apparently more than enough for a doctor

Well if you really want to run with this one, how much does an experienced doctor earn?

An experienced binman is not similarly skilled to a person with a medical degree.

Can we drop this absolutely ridiculous argument about binmen?

Earning potential is literally uncapped with private work. Most people never earn beyond the £29k a doctor starts on. Still more people who are as equally essential - and skilled - to society as a doctor who will struggle to earn much beyond £29k.

@Drstrike

£25k doesn't go that far with the cost of living. What about shop workers? Supermarket workers? Nurses? NHS admin staff? Paramedics? Learning support staff? Lots of people deserve a higher wage than what they get. That is what the PP was suggesting, not that binmen should be on the same wage as doctors.

It should be shocking, but it is sadly not. There are a lot of people who don't get paid enough for what they do. In an ideal world, doctors would get paid more, as would people in many other fields. We don't live in an ideal world sadly.

Which people are those?

I wonder if there would be less locum Drs ( and presumably more NHS Drs)if the salary was better. I know of a GP who works Bank Holidays - especially Xmas Day - as a locum in a hospital and receives over £3k for one day. Yes she is self employed and yes she is willing to cover for those that don't or won't work over Xmas but is it really acceptable to pay her that for one day?

Locum shifts exist because of rota gaps. She is paid that much because nobody wants to accept less. That's how the locum market works. If you decide it isn't acceptable to pay her, nobody works the shift.

This is exactly what you are helping ensure happens. That the nhs collapses.

Your attitude stinks you are so frigging entitled.

I work with doctors and all the junior doctors I am working with hold your attitude and honestly it makes me so angry. I have lost so much respect for the medical profession, I think many people have....

Read your posts back and reflect upon how you are coming across. You've come on here looking for support to justify your strikes I bet. Some will support you and many won't.

Funny how doctors supported the nurses but the same favour isn't being paid.

What's the difference between an inexperienced binman and an experienced one, compared to the difference between an inexperienced doctor and an experienced one?

And I say that as someone who has a lot of respect for bin men. They do an essential but unglamorous job and seem to be very cheerful. The ones round here always wave at my kids.

But no matter how experienced you are, collecting rubbish is collecting rubbish.

The country's most experienced neurosurgeon has come a lot further since their junior doctor years and their pay needs to reflect that.

Not shocked no but does get me annoyed when people assume doctors salaries are over £100,000 a year. They have spent years in the profession and have earnt they're salaries. Not just by qualifications. But by dedication and determined to make a difference by specialising in certain medical issues.

Doctors do deserve to earn more than binmen. A junior doctor earns more than an experienced binman. An experienced doctor earns many times more than an inexperienced binman.

Lol. I'm not a nurse. But it's like comparing apples to oranges.

An experienced binman might well be the same age as a junior doctor, given that you don't need a degree to be a binman but can start straight out of school, with no debt.

I also think the pandemic created a society where we perhaps over consider the importance of medics. That’s not to say they’re not important, clearly they are (and I am very grateful for the role they play), but there are a lot of roles we need to make society work - not just medics, but refuse collectors, civil servants, lorry drivers, produce pickers, factory workers, politicians, lawyers, banks, the list goes on…