Struggling to make ends meet as a junior doctor. AIBU?

[HK3444]

Struggling to make ends meet. Rent has gone up, food bills are going up and struggling to support my kids.

I’m someone worked really hard through medical school, it felt like endless exams and accumulated student debt with the hope that I’d be able to support my family comfortably at the end of the degree and but also feel job satisfaction bettering the health of others.

Not sure what this was all for… can’t believe I’m in this situation as a doctor

Ahps extend well beyond that and in our dept stat on band 6 or band 7 depending on service needs. New ahps in many roles.

Nurses, paramedics and midwives will stat on band 5, most occupational therapists h here start on band 6.

I don't want to be outing but ahps associated with everything from cardiology through audiology, radiography, ophthalmology, psychology etc starting below band 6 would be very unusual and most start on band 7.

@Cmonluv MPs don't need life experience - particularly north of the border:

Mhairi Black - 20 years 7 months
Nadia Whittome - 23 years
Charles Kennedy - 23 years 7 months
Jo Swinson - 25 years 3 months
Pamela Nash - 25 years 11 months

Charles Kennedy was a rare talent who should have been better protected.
We used to have people steeped in experience but recently Uni > Think tank/lobbying/PR/journalism > Parliament has become more common.

There are loads of admin staff in the NHS who earn more than junior doctors too. Not just managers, as we’re all meant to hate those - but where I work, the communications managers for example, aka the ones running social media etc, are band 7 (over 40k)

And for what I and several of those AHPs do the entry requirements are higher than when I trained not lower

Hence why I said for the most part and traditionally and believe me.i am NOT supporting high MP salaries but it's not comparable to someone of 23 straight from university suddenly expecting to be on 80/90k in what is a funded training rolw

The thing is, if you don't pay people a decent salary, they tend to go elsewhere. I'm in Oz, and when my husband was in hospital last month for an op, there were so many British and Irish doctors and nurses! We were chatting to one doctor (who looked about 12 but it was actually his 27th birthday), and he told me loads of people come over intending to only stay a few years for the experience, and end up staying because they get used to the higher salaries and better conditions. Obviously, a lot of HCPs won't want to move due to family ties, etc, but many will take that opportunity, and who can blame them?

Not remotely, I just don't believe the context of the thread, I think it's nonsense. I think it's there to be divisive by a journalist, j think junior doctors should be paid more but I think the whole not making ends meet nonsense is that, nonsense. If you can't make ends meet for a couple fo years on 32k and that's the lowest you can expect to earn knowing you'll have incremental rises up to the expected level in a decade then you need to move the ends.

Someone posted figures a few pages back, it's not the massive numbers you think.

@Cmonluv You have no idea what you're talking about. Her BASE salary is for twelve 12-hour shifts per month. So as little as 144 hours per month. That is 36 hours a week. She can, if she chooses, work up to 20 12-hour shifts, so 240 hours or 60 hours per week. Residents (jr. docs) are limited by law to 80 hours a week, but attending physicians (consultants) work less and earn a whole lot more. Again, our system is expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Maternity leave varies by employer with the average being about 9 paid weeks. She can arrange her schedule to maximize her leave since she gets to choose her shifts. But since she's only 26 and broke up with her boyfriend in medical school, that won't be an issue for awhile. She gets a month of PTO, plus funeral leave, unlimited sick leave, etc.

@MoreHairyThanScary · Yesterday 22:56

I think those saying the pay is adequate have absolutely no idea of the pressure, workload and responsibility of a newly qualified Junior dr or for that matter a senior registrar ( also classified as a jnr Dr!)

These are some of the brightest people who chose to train to support others, and we as a nation are losing them in droves. We need to pay comparable salaries which at the moment we are not close to doing.

I'm a nurse and despite the impact on patients absolutely support the Drs, the conservative government is driving the NHS into the ground, this is just another strategy at play.

This☝️sums it up for me.

Additionally, I wish we as a Nation could wake up to fact that Conservative Govt are dismantling NHS.

Also cost of living and the property issues in Australia as well as the different system as healthcare user and the fact it's just so far away put many people off.

My sister lived in New Zealand for a few years, despite salaries 3 times what they earn in the UK they could barely afford to rent a shared house and would never have been able to afford to buy. They moved home, have lower salaries, new cars, bought a detached house, all on 1/3 of the salary they earned in New Zealand.

Well this is exactly the problem. Because of the wages and working conditions, people won’t train as doctors to work in the Uk for the nhs.

The strikes aren’t solely about pay but it’s suits the government to have a “greedy doctors” rhetoric because it puts the blame on them and not the chronic underfunding of the nhs.

@Cmonluv Radiographers are band 5 here, qualified optometrists are band 6, psychologists would only be band 7/usually 8a if they have a PhD and are HCPC registered. AHPs who don’t start on band 5 are the exception not the norm. 20 years ago you didn’t even need a degree to be a nurse or a midwife so I’m intrigued as to which profession you’re in where the requirements were higher back then than they are now.

Re not believing the context of the thread there is hardly any context to disbelieve? Disbelieving original posts by people on here seems to be a pattern for you, it’s rather odd. Its very feasible a junior in London or even other expensive cities like York or Bristol is struggling to make ends meet, and it’s not as simple as just moving depending on where you’re at with training - sometimes they are just allocated to an area and have to accept it. Just because they’re going to earn more in the future doesn’t mean they aren’t struggling now and even if they know money is coming later it’s not like they can just ask for an advance so what good is that?

Within the NHS a doctor will start with 5 weeks paid holiday plus 9 public holidays, that will increase by a week after 10 years. Maternity pay is complicated to explain but works out 6 months full pay, 3 months half pay roughly with 3 months further unpaid entitlement.

Training is included in their role and incremental pay rises annually. Cost of living and housing is hugely different, childcare is less expensive and partially subsidized from the age of 3 years old, access to medical training is much more widely available, it is possible for someone here to grow up in poverty and if they get the grades they can go to university and train to be a doctor, their fees will be paid without having to gain scholarships by being infinitely better than others of the same level.

It's an entirely different country and system and the salary requirements to have a good quality fo life jn the US is significantly different to that in the UK, alongside the work life balance difference and the fact we don't have easy access to guns, school shootings regularly and trump.

I’m assuming you’re not on Twitter then as there are loads of doctors struggling financially who are very open about it. I think you need the reality check. None of the bandings I posted are wrong for England.

I think Drs should be paid more.
But I see people posting on MN with household incomes of £100k or £150k saying they are struggling. So simply someone saying they are struggling without any context is pretty meaningless.

There is struggling financially and struggling financially.

Someone on 32k for 2 years as their lowest salary won't be well off but they should be able to afford rent, food and transport costs, as their salary increases they afford significantly more luxuries over time.

When I was a skint 22 yr old fresh out of university I briefly earned significantly less than that and over a year lived very ahd. To mouth. Knowing when I was fully qualified I'd earn 3 times what I had been meant I could scrimp knowing it would improved quickly. That's very different to someone living on a fixed salary with no way out.

If someone can't see that they are going to be reaping rewards over time that the admin workers on band 4 that you mention will never reap, their top earning potential is the same as the starting alary you claim a junior doctor can't make ends meet on. So on that salary forever how do people make ends meet? They lower their expectations. Someone starting on 32k with significant increases annually can briefly lower their expectations surely while being trained?

NZ is not Australia though, its much more expensive, which is why we have loads of Kiwis moving here! I am in Perth where house prices are a lot cheaper then Sydney and Melbourne. It is also a shorter flight to the UK, so that's maybe why a lot of HCPs move here rather than East coast. Anyway, perhaps it is only 350 doctors a year now (but I'd guess a hell of a lot more nurses), but if wages in the UK continue to stagnate those numbers are bound to rise.

At least 3 are wrong for Scotland.

Look at the stats, it's not a lot and it's not long term moves, it's people lie my sister going for a few years then going home

There's two things here and they need separating...

1 you absolutely should be paid more for the responsible work currently do but

2 many people are living on minimum wage and you knew what doctors were paid when you started. Your situation will only improve. You have, virtually, a job for life and will eventually be paid significantly more. You will also receive a handsome pension. This point 2 is what you need to be careful to not shout "woe is me" from the rooftops. Many are coping on far less.

I didn’t say they were Scottish bands. I said ‘here’. You then said ‘wrong for most of England’. Which for the record doesn’t even make sense, as banding does not change throughout the country. London has high cost area but the base band salary remains the same as anywhere else.
32k would not get you far anywhere down here, after student loan, pension, and OP said they have kids. London and most of the south would be worryingly tight financially, even the north is now becoming increasingly expensive. We don’t have all these 100k houses like you seem to have in Scotland, good for you if 32k is doable but OP isn’t unreasonable to be struggling on that salary in most of England - 32k is below the average wage

I'm not suggesting a 23 yr old junior doctor will be able to buy a house.

I'm suggesting they will be able to afford housing, food and transport and have a significant annual improvement in income, allowing them to gradually save and buy a house.

Do you think a 23 yr old, because they've studied medicine, must immediately be able to afford a 500k house or something? Because that's what I mean by realistic expectations.

Also I'm originally from northern Ireland, look at the cost of housing there some day. I'm too settled here to move back home now but seriously for the cost of my 4 bed terrace in Scotland I could afford a 6 bed farmhouse with alnd in my home town. So I took moan at different housing costs, it's not just comparing south of england to Scotland