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?

Agree completely with you, people haven’t got a clue just what it takes to even become a student, and you are right the suicide rate is unbelievable and it’s just swept under the carpet and ignored.

Yes that’s always been where I think I earn my pay. If something happens to a patient officially under my care, even if I have never met then and they have been seen by another hcp, I have to go to the coroner’s inquest to answer questions. V stressful indeed. I have to take responsibility for every other person in the team. That’s where the old-fashioned hierarchy comes in. I certainly don’t think I am ‘better’ than my fabulous colleagues. I am not. But the system requires me to take overall responsibility, whether I want to or not.

Most professional jobs start low with earning potential later. Seems like fair salary at outset and loans will be at a set level as government.

Highly misleading. Many are junior doctors 15+ years after qualifying. It's usual to take time out for research, teaching, further qualifications, or to develop extra skills, in order to become employable as a consultant.
Even without this, training programmes are often 7 years, plus 2 years foundation training, plus extra time for subspecialty training.

Time spent on maternity leave doesn't count towards training, and a significant proportion cannot manage the 48 hours a week, often for family or health reasons, so reduce their hours, meaning training takes longer. There are also not enough consultant jobs out there, so many spend their careers as middle grades. I know people in their 40s and 50s who are still 'junior doctors'. They are highly experienced and skilled however, and deserve to be recognised as such.

The UK is the only place I know (of) where young doctors are exploited way beyond the limit. I do wonder how you can keep up any serious patientcare at all. (P.s. I'm in Belgium)

It’s odd that the BBC isn’t reporting more on this strike. It’s going to be hell. Sorry everyone, I will do my best to cover junior colleagues on the wards tomorrow but I simply cannot do the work of three/four juniors effectively. As well as doing the consultant role.

Think of your future opportunities. Consultants earn loads thro NHS and private work. Flexible working. Good pension. No pain no gain as they say.

As others have said, many professions have low remuneration at the start.
But by the time they get to be senior doctors, their pay will be sufficient that that their annual pension contributions will be so high that they have to campaign to have pension allowances/schemes specifically for doctors, or work part time to avoid their pension costs exceeding the pension ceiling.

Well if they’re newly qualified GPs they’re not newly qualified doctors are they?

They’ve been graduated for a minimum of 5 years (two years of foundation, three years of GP training). Thus the starting salary the OP quoted isn’t relevant to their situation (and a lot of medics part time hours are more than many people’s full time. My husband is a part time surgical trainee and does on average 40 hours/week).

Conditions are getting worse for all of us in the NHS . We’re doing more and more with less and less resources. You work flat out to still provide a terrible standard of care. You spend so many shifts apologising. More and more people leave medicine (either completely or to go overseas) so you’re stretched even thinner. The conditions aren’t balanced by the pay which has been eroded year on year due to inflation. Many of my friends are on antidepressants and I’ve already lost one colleague to suicide. The abuse from the general public (and on mumsnet) has really ramped up. Something has to give.

I’ve always worked in the private sector - six months full sick pay and then three months at half pay, 17% employer pension contribution and maternity pay at full salary for six months.

Shocked no but saddened. My daughter wants to get into medicine and it scares the life out of me the hoops she will need to jump to and at what cost (not just financial but also the physical and emotional ones and the abuse that she will receive along the way)

Sorry OP that you have received a lot of negative responses you have one of the hardest jobs I don’t think it’s all about the wages though for me it’s about the conditions that you guys also face our NHS is in tatters xxx

I've just left medicine.. before I became another suicide statistic tbh... it was nothing to do with money... no amount of money in the world would get me to step back into general practice as it is currently.

Why do nurses need more? There degree is 3 years a medical one is 5 plus nurses do not need the commitment it takes to get on a medical degree that a doctor does, also everybody is aware that from first year nurses can do bsnk work and earn almost £20 an hour If they work weekends. Doctors can not.

And how is that good for the patient? Having bank nurses?

One of the nastier posts when the bar is already pretty low. Why not just p**s off back overseas then and pay for your own healthcare. Presumably you have paid minimal UK taxes anyway during your many years overseas. Slow clap indeed...for you.

I’m sorry for all your misfortune.

My daughter (one of the newly qualified GPs I mentioned) has been very well trained as part of her medical training in the importance of not being overworked.
All good, no-one wants to be faced with a doctor who is too tired to make a proper diagnosis or treatment decision.
The upshot is that the workload that and I her brother (both solicitors) think is entirely normal, she would think is intolerable.

Who said it was good? Did you even read what I said! My point was that someone said nurses should get a pay rise and I said why? And then made my comment!!

I agree, there are also salaries that admin managers are on that far exceed social workers pay whose job is far harder, far more responsibility etc. Not to mention the social worker has had to go to uni to get a degree and deal some awful things like abuse. Admin staff just sit behind a computer screen having meetings in most LGAs.

Why didn’t your husband do medicine then?

And what?

It really, really annoys me when one profession seeks to try and make out they work harder and/or are paid less for what they do than other professions and deserve more. If you're not happy doing it then find something else - you may find it isn't necessarily that different elsewhere.

I really get so fed up listening to the whining of many on strike these days, although I sympathise more if it's about conditions of work, but there are many far worse off with no prospects of higher income. Unfortunately, I feel there appears to be little concept of working your way up the ladder these days and the expectation is to have it all now.

Rant over

People in this country do not value profession that takes decade of specialist training. Low pay, coupled with uncertainty in where the job is, unsociable hours hence higher childcare cost, long unpaid overtime. It is the same with post doc and academia on contracts. High-skill professionals like this will flee the country and other countries will welcome them. I am already seeing many of our friends doing so. This in turn will cause brain drain in this country, collapse of the nhs and depressed economy

Sigh do many assumptions here… Consultants earn “loads”, actually Dh who has been a consultant for nearly 20 years is the lowest earner amongst his old Uni mates (who all went into finance or business).
Not all Consultants have enough time or energy for private practice. They have to complete all their contractual obligations to the NHS first. In our local Trust you have to work a minimum of 11 PAs - slightly more than the basic full time contract - before you can do private.
Flexible working? Depends entirely on each Trust and what they are prepared to offer, it’s certainly not guaranteed.

I remain astounded and saddened by the hostility on this thread for people who care for us in our most vulnerable moments. Most of the general public cannot comprehend and do not want to understand the realities of working in the healthcare system and the type of decisions/human suffering that people in the profession deal with on a daily basis.

It's happening already and is very sad.

@Bunpea if you do genuinely have a daughter who is a GP, you would have a full grasp of the fact that she is not a newly qualified doctor (as per OP) but a specialist.
Whether or not junior doctors are trained in the importance of not being overworked I couldn't say. Certainly, it was the exact opposite when I qualified but that was 20+ years ago. Put and up and shut up and see one do one teach one with regards procedures were more the thing then. Worked well in excess of hours a week at times for very poor pay. If things have partially improved that is a good thing surely.