Well the pay is rubbish if you compare us to our other nhs colleagues. We’re not on agenda for change pay scales like nurses. As I said before. The only doctors paid more per hour than some ANPs I work with are consultants. So very very senior registrars leading teams, performing surgery etc etc are on less than other team members with far less skills and experience. How is that fair? Why as doctors should we be paid less than colleagues with less responsibility for patients?
And re housing because I’ll be well into my 30s and at short notice can be told to go work 2.5 hours away in a rural area for a year. Never mind having kids in primary school. There’s no educational benefit to me working in a rural district general instead of my local district general but no one wants to work there and the physician associates etc won’t so they force the rotational registrars. So we pay a mortgage and rent for a second place. On a salary that as of 2022 was 35% less than a doctor would have got in 2008. How is that fair?
If doctors aren’t underpaid then the rest of the nhs are overpaid. They’re not. I don’t resent my colleagues being paid more per hour than me, they deserve that wage and nurses are still underpaid. But why are doctors paid less than non prescribers? When it’s the doctor taking all of the legal responsibility?
There was a telegraph article that says becoming a hospital consultant typically costs £20,000 of a junior doctors own money on exams, moving costs, professional fees, courses etc etc. My exams are compulsory. I’m sacked from my job if I fail them too many times, but I have to pay for each and every attempt (I’ve spent £4k so far).
Since 2012 graduates will pay 9% tax on everything they earn over £25k. My loan interest is so obscene that even as an nhs consultant I won’t pay it off like my previous counterparts did.
This is a hugely demanding, stressful and expensive job to do. It doesn’t matter if the public think we’re paid well enough, we’re not being paid well enough to retain us and we will leave. Being a doctor used to be a tough job that was financially rewarding. It’s still tough, but the financial rewards have dwindled.
Rotating round other specialties is useful! I’ve done surgical jobs so I can think hmmm is this acute porphyria or a surgical abdomen etc etc, we have a breadth and depth of knowledge that various associates will never have.
We train for longer, we do rigorous exams and each year we work we are doing 25% more weekly hours than them. I wish I’d become a PA! Or an ANP! They’re the smart ones. Being a doctor is not worth it, I discourage anyone who expresses an interest.