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?

Er.. no. It's just that collecting bins isn't a skilled job that requires a 5 year degree.

Lovely.

I know quite a few doctors who are now approaching 40 and most are high earners. Most well paid careers start with jobs that pay in the £20k-something region. I really don't think junior doctors are the sector of society I'd be going in to bat for.

The stuff about how emotionally hard the job is, that's irrelevant. Care workers do an emotionally gruelling job on a pittance.

Are you a doctor by any chance?

If you're not happy with pay and conditions then of course you're free to persue a different path. If you could find something else as worthy of your superiority.

£51
£58

Foundation years pay I think is about right and similar to a band 6/7 nurse who has similar responsibility. My issue is more the ST years when pay should rise higher and faster. I also think band 6/7 need to increase for HCPs. Rostering needs to change across the NHS work life balance is very much in favour of work across the board at the minute

No, not shocking at all. Always been like this, because they get continuing education until they reach consultant level. Used to be even worse, because 30 years ago house officers were paid on call hours at one- third of their normal rate, which meant that they were earning less per hour than porters. Nobody goes into medicine to make big money.

Plenty of jobs require years of training, stop trying to put yourself on some sort of pedestal we're all bored of it, if they are struggling welcome to the club but a majority are not.

Society cannot function with out people at all levels, your disregard for people on manual labour is sickening.

@JemimaTiggywinkles im on £19/hr after ten years

if the govt can rely on other countries to import drs and nurses then I think it’s fair current junior drs look abroad; it’s an international market.

Student loans are often used for the student lifestyle too don't forget

I don’t think you’ll get much sense on this thread, just a load of people deliberately being antagonistic and suggesting it’s ok to pay you in buttons…
the pay grade I find most shocking is registrar/ staff grade as they take so much responsibility

How is it "disregarding manual labour" to say a highly trained professional working with life and death situations is deserving of slightly more money?

What do you do for a job? If you're on more than a bin man then why is that?

Tbh all that training and it still results in GPs so useless that any appointment is a waste of time and I come away thinking I might as well have asked the cat. Luckily I'm quite healthy overall, the prospect of actually needing help from any of the drs in my practice is a bit scary.

The fact people are arguing that doctors are elitist for wanting to earn more than a bin man means this country no longer deserves the NHS.

Let it collapse then.

No because it's the same salary as most graduates on schemes, many will have integrated masters (4 years) so not miles apart. My dd has started on £28k in a very different role but arguably just as responsible and her upper salary is lower.

Doctors like many professions have to work to get salary increases. 10 years in or so they can be on higher salaries then most of us can even dream about ever earning, I don't begrudge them a penny but demanding they get paid more in their first year doesn't make sense, they aren't proven then, still being supervised

I was pointing out the ridiculousness of the OP's statement. We WILL NOT end up with only international doctors here.

I'd like to think doctors don't choose their profession for the money. However, I've never met a poor doctor. In comparison to vets, who have to learn to treat xxx amount of species, a doctor is paid amazingly well!

Most doctors to not get an "integrated masters" - you are misinformed. Any masters would be self-funded and time taken out of training to complete.

I actually don't think you're helping your cause here as much as you think you are.

So let's examine bin men because you picked them out, without bin men it would be life and death as disease , pest and sanitary related illness and deaths would plage the country.

We're all pert of cogs in a big machine, the brain might think it's incharge but if the arse and colon goes on strike it's fucked.

This is a stupid argument. ALL of those people deserve to be paid more - they’re vital jobs to keep society running and don’t get enough respect or money to enable workers to have decent standards of living.

It’s not either/or. Or a race to the bottom. I can’t believe anyone would think those numbers are a fair salary for doctors who need specialist knowledge gained over years, have no time for a life outside work, and literally hold lives in their hands. Of course they deserve more.

And so do many, many other jobs. In an ideal world, the minimum wage would be at least double what it is and everyone, regardless of education level or job, could access secure housing, pay their essential outgoings and have money left over to do with what they please. But capitalism doesn’t work like that.

They absolutely deserve to be paid more! The exams alone cost thousands. They can be placed anywhere in a county moving every 4-6 months for up to 5 years. They work unsocial hours, never leave on time, have their holidays dictated to them and have zero flexibility in deciding their working hours and days. You cannot compare a healthcare job to any other profession.

And consultant's can earn.... what?
Really doctors do just fine. They may have lost sight of what normal wages are.

Which roles are you specifically thinking of? The few which the DM tends to run articles on as there's hardly any of them (ie not worth getting worked up about)? Or corporate roles of which the NHS is competing with the wider market for suitably qualified and experienced people and so have to pay a comparable wage, albeit it is always lower than industry and even other public sector departments?

I agree healthcare staff across the board should be paid more, but I'm not sure why people assume professionals would want to work in the NHS for a fraction of the pay they could get elsewhere for often what is more challenging work. You can see this is the case as more NHS specific jobs like medical receptionists (who work bloody hard) are paid peanuts because they're not fighting other organisations for these particular roles- they have a monopoly.

Who do you think pays for the doctors training them and all the medical equipment? Want to be a pilot - you pay for it yourself.

I have brothers and sisters that are all doctors and 4 friends that are GPS - none work full time. A full time GP is 10 sessions so even then that’s 3 and a bit full days. None. Computers, cars, mobile phones all paid for. All have houses worth over a million each and kids in private school.

my brother in law works 2 days a week as a consultant for the nhs - no private work and he earns 100K plus a year

most have a private company and act as self employed including GPs extra work is funnelled into that own companies, each has an accountant to minimise tax etc

please don’t claim doctors are poverty stricken on the line.

look at a newly qualified teacher…. They work hard but no harder than me - or thousands and millions of others.