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?

@Sarahcoggles ditto teachers 😊. Full support to all doctors, who are not junior, from me. Better go do some work (unpaid obviously 😂).

Yes, definitely dentist pay after qualification should be on a similar level to drs,so I would have no issue with reducing this foundation pay of dentists to match that of doctors

I love my job still. I am not motivated by money. Until this pension tax horror, I wasn’t bothered about the financial side of things at all. I have not called in sick for 30 years and have given a lot to the NHS. I carried on even when doing 56 hour shifts and was treated terribly by consultants as a junior. But the non-financial rewards were there. Feeling like I was doing good. Camaraderie. Being able to access support services for patients. In a system that cared. No regrets.

No way would I encourage anyone to go into it now. My sister’s daughter left after her CT1 year to join a drug company.

I don’t know what the answer is. I interview at medical school and am baffled at the thousands of applicants. When it’s becoming such an unappealing career now. I am so relieved my kids didn’t apply.

Your son would be better off doing a science degree.

Oh the irony. If you give it you should be able to take it.
You actually slagged off an entire profession and now you're outraged. Brilliant.

@user1471556443 I do more than spell it out ! I shove it in their faces by getting in doctors to speak to them !! However when you've walked several thousand miles and arrived on a dingy at age 14 then it probably doesn't seem so bad. Now we'll stick those same kids in prison 😡.

One of mine who navigated the care system for 10 years is now an F2 and loves her job. But can't afford to live anywhere nice. She'd just like a flat of her own to sleep in - sharing and night shifts don't work well (rental not buying - that's a distant dream).

@user1471556443 😂 so pulling up that ladder behind you. Nice that you're earning well now and did as a junior. But stomp on those coming up after you. Nice.

It was meant to be fairly tongue in cheek but honestly it's not at all fair to put the level of responsibility on a 24yr old newly qualified doctor that is placed on them. They are being paid fairly for a training post unfortunately it's not being treated like a training post, that's the problem. No profession has newly qualified being paid hugely beyond their capability and nor should they. Now, if you say there should be a steeper annual raise before specialism I'd be with you, definitely!

Personally I think the funding should go to training doctors so it's not prohibitively expensive for a huge number of able candidates. Then to ensuring they have the support they need to train.

Expecting to start on a very high wage for a highly trained profession when really you're only half trained is not something any other sector would expect.

Yes, perhaps we should pay them the £58k starting salary as well, and the up to £75k additional bursary during studies on top of nhs bursary and student loans.

Then ask them to do the army 4 years minimum commitment, not 8 as you state.

Fair enough. So actually more money than they are asking for, but with a guarantee of four years service. Why not?

When I was a junior doctor we did on-calls, not shifts. So an on-call weekend would start on Saturday morning and end on Monday morning, when we would then do a normal day till 5pm. During an on-call we could literally work non stop, with no time to eat or sleep for 48 hours. It was inhumane. And while we were on call we were paid less than the cleaners. That's not an exaggeration, it's true. And I know for a fact that people died in hospital, who would have survived if the doctors hadn't been so exhausted.

The first thing I did on my very first day was certify someone dead. The next thing was to tell a 19 year old he had leukaemia. I was 23 at the time.

I find it very depressing and frustrating when people on MN tell me that I'm not worth the money I earn.

@user1471556443 it's called pay parity. You may have heard of it ? Dentists pay has kept that parity so you will have earned the same as an F1 on qualification. But you think new dentists pay should be eroded by 26% ?

@Forgooodnesssakenow they don't want more than new dentists earn (I've just seen that !). Maybe pay them the same as we currently pay new dentists ? Just not the same as a barista ? Who deserve their £14 an hour before someone jumps on me.

@Sarahcoggles lowest paid person in the hospital at weekends is not the F1. And they still do on call.

Is now the F1.

"who in the private sector doesn't get sick pay or pension provision - it's a legal right that employers now pay into a pension for their employees"
I work for myself as do loads of the self employed in the UK. We don't get sick pay. I will have a state pension of about £10k which after tax will be about £4k a year when I reach 67 as I will also be working until I die. No employer ever has paid into a pension fund for me.

The UK minimum employee rights is no pay for the first 3 days off sick and SSP at a low rate from day 4. So no enhanced sick pay. If you are not in work you don't get paid. On pensions there is for those rich enough to afford not to contract out of it auto enrolment pension but it is relatively small so probably worth the not well off opting out (and the self employed do not get it).

Basically tax payers who can hardly heat their homes have not much sympathy for rich doctors at present.

The pay is better than I thought. It's inline with a lawyer in the civil service but the pay progression is better than lawyers (in my circle).
The working conditions need looking at as I hear it's terrible.

I remember after one similar weekend to you, asking if I could leave at 1630 instead of 1700 on the Monday. After having been there since 900 Saturday with no sleep. I felt like I was asking for a £100k pay rise; it felt so cheeky. It was unbelievable what we did.

That doesn't surprise me. We used to joke that the crash bleep should be given to the man who polished the floor as he earned more than the junior doctors.

Sadly being a doctor or a teacher is seen by many as being a "calling", and something we should want to do for free.

So, you're saying the true cost of tuition is around £200k

And I'm saying medical graduates pay back almost £200k.

If they took out a loan for £200k, I agree they'd pay back many times more - which would further strengthen the argument to pay better.

I want him to think about all the options even if it means a gap year. He will most likely have four A stars at A level (Maths, Further Maths, Chem, Biology) and A star EPQ. Can I please ask the doctors on here if you have any suggestions of alternative careers they wish they had followed instead. Money isn't the main motivator but I would like him to have a financially secure future and a life.

@Floatingboats
With grades like that your son could get into one of the extremely selective American universities that offer financial aid to international students. It may be too late for him to start the application process for this year's admission rounds ,but he might be able to take a gap year and then apply.

Engineering would be the obvious alternative to medicine, either in the UK or the US.

Mumsneedwine, this isn't about pulling up the ladder, you totally misunderstood me! I am saying that F1 salary would have made no difference to me , and I think it's fair that it should be on par with DRS?? I am bowing out now as you are just determined to see everyone as against you.
You, just crack on helping kids get into medicine and then complaining about what an awful job it is afterwards 🙄

Also, of course I know what pay parity is ? There is no need to take that condescending tone

@user1471556443 I was just a bit disgusted by the 'well I was paid that but now people shouldn't be'. You suggest new dentists don't have pay parity with you ? Sorry, don't understand that at all.

Btw, it was YOU that slagged off an entire profession, saying dentist are the biggest money grabbers and also failed medics to boot!! All I have said is that a lot of dr's go into the profession for status which is also true of dentists and many other professions??

@user1471556443 🤷‍♀️ hate me or don't, I just want a doctor if I'm not well. Have a good evening. I have learned new stuff from you and am grateful for that.

A newly qualified doctor is still very much in training. By the time a doctor has 5 or 6 years experience they are earning big bucks. More importantly the hourly rate needs to be improved for social care workers who earn the minimum wage unlike their NHS counterparts.