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?

I think it is disgusting to go through all that training and stress and then hold all of that responsibility to be paid that low.. they should be rewarded straight out of training for even making it there. When you look at what politicians etc make.. I don’t think it’s right of fair at all.

Where in my post does it say he went into medicine for money? What a strange inference

You said he doesn’t see it as a vocation. What steered him to it then? The shift patterns?

@Bloopsie I highly doubt that you are able to read for yourself if your writing skills are anything to go by.

I think there is a middle ground between ‘vocation’ and ‘moneyspinner’. Medicine attracts many who value an academic challenge and the idea of doing a socially useful job. That was largely it for me anyway.
I think on threads like this, the middle ground sometimes gets lost.

@Meandfour just because it’s a vocation doesn’t mean money doesn’t matter. The only people who don’t care about the money have family wealth. Most people still need to be paid to pay the bills and live their lives

Brilliant.

Having seen other posts from this person Bloopsie, I am not sure she is someone who is very well-informed let’s say, to put it politely.

@mathanxiety I do not not work Monday to Friday, nor 9 - 5. If my client is in crisis, I stay with them. Your point?

Little bit unfair. I don’t scare easily but you have to admit when covid first came on the scene we thought it was more than just viral illness

She's right about the robots... They're coming for us all!

I was very ill in hospital a few years ago with pneumonia. No one could tell me if I'd live or die ( thanks GPs)! I overheard a conversation in a and e between doctors ( I presume junior doctors) around going to Australia to work. Apparently no ward rounds! Obviously dealing with the sick wasn't on their radar. I was sickened by this. Somehow I survived.

I do think the starting salaries are poor, considering the hours (some unsociable) and the level of responsibility and debt. I think it would be better to start on a higher salary then reduce the jump at the top end of the scale.

My professional training takes 6 years (3 years undergrad then 3 years funded doctorate with bursary). Although I did do a masters in between but it wasn't necessary. So the debt students have is from the undergrad. I started on 52k (not NHS) with yearly incremental rises. Some newly qualified can start on more depending on how much in demand they are in certain areas. Also the opportunity to do locum work at £550 per day, with no evenings/ weekend required. My niece is considering medicine and I've chatted to her about it. She thought they earned much more than me so is now considering going down my route.

It's amazing how people will say that they believe that increasing inequality is a bad thing as an abstract concept, but then start going on about doctors deserving to be paid far more than those doing jobs requiring little to no training, that they should be paid wages equal to what they'd be paid elsewhere in the world etc etc. Most highly skilled people can earn more overseas if they pick and choose where they want to go and work. Most unskilled and semi-skilled people cannot. So where do you go with this?

Patients died on the ventilators because they got the wrong treatment,hence why matt hanckock now is called midazolam matt and there are calls to get him arrested, midazolam causes respiratory issues, in countries where it was not used to euthanize,i mean to treat, there was little or no rise in deaths. When donalt trump used ivermectin based on his personal doctors advice he was laughed at,india etc used it and now after the horse has bolted and gate is open and millions injected with useless mrna vaccines there are articles praising ivermectins success in covid treatment, but ivermecting being an old medicine was not going to make billions to the pharma companies, doctors in the uk were not allowed to prescribe it for covid.

talking about high death rate, uk has seen this year extraordinarily high excess death rate,higher than during the plandemic.

I’m genuinely horrified, reading many of these messages. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a doctor to earn £50k, or even £100k. Given I have a number of friends/relatives who work in financial services, are not as qualified, and earn over £100k.
I think those who are naysayers only need to think about when they or loved ones, need serious or specialist medical treatment. Do you want someone who is burned out, exhausted, and disillusioned, doing your emergency surgery, for example (I had middle of the night emergency neurosurgery, undertaken by ‘junior’ doctors - the specialist Registrar - initially.) I was, and remain, BLOODY grateful for them, their skill, and dedication.

I would say that, when we all complain about waiting times, lack of facilities etc, we are largely complaining about a broken system. Of course there’s less skilled or less dedicated (or bad) doctors, the same as any profession. But if someone is a bit lazy, or does a bit of a slapdash effort, there’s less of an impact - generally - than there is if a doctor fucks up.

OP, and fellow other JDs, you have my support.

🤣🤣you can not be serious.

I must say I am shocked with the lack of sympathy for junior drs the training is excruciatingly brutal for very little financial reward. A teacher doesn't train for so long nor be expected to work the hours but there is sympathy and recognition for them. And the negativity for the doctor over the dustman comment was ridiculous, bin men do a good job but are unskilled and they don't have to make life and death decisions. So to my mind they shouldn't be paid the same. And I think we all need to remember we need doctors.

You'd be surprised how much of the time you're running on adrenalin as a high flying solicitor. Please don't pull the 'lives in our hands' card as you're in the same boat as many other less well paid professions with that particular stressor and what you need to deal with it is better support and working conditions, not more money. It's a red herring. Professional responsibility and pressure comes in all sorts of forms. I actually think many GPs are far too relaxed about potentially missing something and would appreciate it if they considered that the odds of survival for the patient they are blithely sending to an over stretched A and E because it's dinner time.

I aplogize english is not my native tongue its just one of the languages i speak/write, i dont put a lot of thought into grammar etc when i am posting on mumsnet.

An interesting job. A job, with, you know, pay. It’s a good job, I work it too, but we have a family to support and a mortgage to pay. It’s not a vocation

I think there is a lot of sympathy for drs really but the question was bady worded because people know doctors go on to earn well over this and have a lovely pension while many of us can never access the health service we pay for, nor earn a living wage. The thing to do is to fix the NHS, not look for support from the public because to be honest, the medics aren't the only ones with compassion fatigue.

But most people can pay the bills and live their life on 40k.of course the getting paid something matters. But a lot of the people I know who went into some form of HCP did so as they genuinely wanted to help people. My best friend is a nurse and certainly didn’t enter nursing to become wealthy. She sees it as a vocation and she certainly doesn’t have family money. She pays her bills just fine.

Fair enough. All jobs pay though.

Oh dear. An anti-vaxxer, who also can’t spell (or capitalise) the name of their lord and master. 🙄