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?

You will never win here. Doctors are public servants and should be working 24/7 for scraps and be grateful for it.
This country is so fucked its unbelievable. The shock they will have when all the doctors disappear and health care falls apart of becomes expensive pay at source will be quite amazing.
TBH I really don't care anymore.

The replies on this are shocking. And I’m so glad my brother left his job in medicine. I understand now the abuse he got whilst he was literally crumbling himself to try and provide the best care. He felt the worst kind of guilt that he left but i U.K. early thought he would be another Dr suicide statistic.

People are so awful.
I don’t think they truly understand how hard the job is and the level of responsibility that even new graduates face. Life changing decisions whilst exhausted and being pulled in every direction.
Studying for exceptionally hard postgraduate exams whilst working nights and on calls and paying thousands everytime for the privilege.

No choice in when you take annual leave even if that means you can’t attend your best friends wedding (or your own sometimes which is actually true)

The suggestion that consultants are raking it in ten years down the line so it’s ok what an awful time juniors get is laughable- compared to their academic peers it’s nothing and if they left to work in pharma for example the financial rewards would be much higher for less hours and stress. Many specialities have no opportunity for private work either.

I hate how devalued the career has become and yet people are so quick to recognise that they need them when they and their families are ill .

To the PP claiming a 10 session full-time GP works 3.5 days, you’re wrong. A session is 4h10min, half a day. Full time would be 5 days, as in other jobs. What that doesn’t take into account is all the other unpaid hours on top. If your doctor friends told you otherwise, they’re winding you up. It worked.

Worth noting that that is the basic salary and most junior doctors are banded based on the roles they do. If it’s mostly sociable hours then they are likely to get basic pay only but most foundation doctors don’t just work sociable hours and their pay is adjusted to reflect that.

I have many doctor friends and they get paid a more than other friends who are also well qualified. Having said that, I am shocked to see how being well qualified and university educated doesn’t appear to get you much further these days in terms of pay.

I don’t think it’s particularly low. In my circle of friends (all graduates from Russell group unis) the doctors earn the most (that is comparing to accountants, engineers, teachers, IT consultant).

What I do think is outrageous though is the conditions, they can’t plan their lives at all, always on call, no choice in when they take holidays, not being able to know when they will / won’t be working at the mercy of the rota gods.

The conditions are the real scandal and that is what needs reforming.

Also the exams should be paid for for a first attempt like in other professions.

Well said.

Junior Doctors are striking for pay restoration. Those who made the choice to study medicine will have made that decision before the real term pay cuts they have experienced as pay hasn't kept up with inflation and the like. That's why many are leaving and working abroad or working in a different field altogether, it isn't what they signed up for. Neither would they have known what a shit state the NHS is currently in or that there would be a global pandemic we were in no way prepared for; the 'they knew what they were getting into isn't really true'.

A job doesn't define the worth of someone as a person, someone who works as a refuse collector is absolutely not lesser than someone who is a doctor, and yes they perform a vital function and if life was fair deserve better pay, but to suggest they should be paid the same as a doctor is just full blown clownery. Something I suspect most people know to be true but for some reason has become controversial to say. I do think free at point of service has made a lot of people ignorant to what medical staff globally earn and what they are worth. Its a job at the end of the day, people shouldn't work for a low wage just because it's our beloved NHS. I don't think people get as annoyed about other professionals employed across government, weird.

You will never win here. Doctors are public servants and should be working 24/7 for scraps and be grateful for it.

That's not what anyone is saying at all. Doctors work hard and conditions are shocking. But don't moan about pay when your starting salary is more than the national average for all workers (some of whom have worked very hard for 30 years).

Sadly agree.

Why spend your best years saving the lives of people who have an "I'm the tax payer so I pay your wages" attitude?

I does shock me. I.don't think it is fine at all. It would be interesting to see what salaries are like in other developed countries. I know people don't go into it for the money and know the salary before hand,but that does not in my mind mean it's acceptable to be so low. This is usually when the word vocation is bandied around. That doesn't pay the bills. Rant over . No affiliation with medical profession at all but needed to vent.

This. It’s all well documented. Hence the reason I’ve always thought people don’t go into medicine for money.

Really? You don't think doctors should recognise that they're public servants and that their patients do indeed pay their wages?

Do you realise doctors pay tax as well?

Medical students have a packed timetable with placements, sometimes a long way from the university, as well as university-based teaching.
i used to work in a medical school and saw how tough it could be compared with other degrees (I am an Arts graduate).

“We” allowed a culture where this happened. It didn’t used to be that way pre Margaret Thatcher in the 80s. And they’re not generating wealth - they’re gambling money around. If they lose their gamble WE do all pay. Do you have any idea how much the 2008 crash cost us, the taxpayer? They create no wealth, they extract it in fees and high speed trading ahead of deals.

Do you imagine they magicking money up from thin air? Or generating jobs or creating products or opportunities?

Yet we reward them, and not doctors or teachers or anyone else that the pandemic showed us that we need, for society to run.

Nobody is saying that the conditions aren't atrocious because they are. But more money does not make the conditions better, it's just more money.

The problem here isn't (or shouldn't be) the starting salary, when it's higher than a lot will achieve in their entire life, the problem is the conditions.

If someone’s intelligent to do medicine they should be intelligent enough to look at salaries, progression, career paths etc.

Its not the 1940’s, the dr isn’t the richest person in the village anymore 🙄

@Starflecked "but to suggest they should be paid the same as a doctor is just full blown clownery"

Who Suggested That? None . The power not is don't complain at very good starting wage when people who do equally vital roles to society get paid far less. Especially when you look down on them.

Yes I think it's shocking, I think the only way such low incomes would be acceptable is if they were fully funded. I don't know how viable it is but I don't think teachers, nurses, drs etc should have student debt, we need these critical positions, they're not well paid they don't have great working conditions, the least we can do is fund them so we have enough. (No I'm not in any of these professions).

“But they’ll earn well in the long term”
”We pay their salary”
”My sister’s boyfriend’s neighbour’s dad is a doctor and he has a well big house”
“But they’re still in training”
”Well they shouldn’t get any more because I can’t get a GP appointment”
”But carers work hard too”

yadda yadda yadda

Point is, junior doctors are voting with their feet and haemorrhaging out of the profession.

Also I’ve been a care assistant and I’ve been a junior doctor, I work far harder as a doctor than I ever did as a carer, and I worked bloody hard as a carer.

I fully support the junior doctors.
It's shocking how undervalued public sector workers are in this country when they are so vital.

As a teacher, I’ve actually had parents say that to me!

It doesn’t matter whether the average Mumsnetter thinks the salary of good or not, young people are not going into certain professions at the rate they were in the past which suggests the salary doesn’t reflect the working conditions.

My unskilled admin team earn 27k, so yes 29k for a qualified doctor is lamentably low.

Most newly qualified professionals start out on low pay. It's the same if you do a PhD. They often study longer than medical doctors and academic postdoc salaries are around the same level.

I suspect all doctors would accept the wage and think it great if they had decent working conditions, full rotas, proper training opportunities, time to study for the exams, annual leave for their own weddings etc etc. The numbers have been reduced (or not kept pace with need) despite all those keen A level students and so those in jobs are pulling the work of 3 or 4. Not surprising in that case the wage feels like a piss take.

When the job is such a total stress they expect to at least get more pay than those doing let’s be honest much easier jobs.