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

London NHS salaries get a London supplement so no it doesn't remain the same

Well you are wrong to think someone with kids on 32k with a student loan and NHS pension would comfortably afford housing, food, and transport in most big English cities. Happy to help. I really don’t care about the last point, you seem incredibly ageist. Not really surprising you hate the idea of young people doing well for themselves if it’s taken you 20 years to get to band 8a.

Yep, as I said - ‘London has high cost area but the base band salary remains the same as anywhere else.’

It's shameful and derisory.
No wonder many doctors and nurses leave the NHS to go and work in Australian and US healthcare.

You're very personally insulting aren't you? 🤣

I'm VERY pro kids doing well for themselves, I want more access for families with low incomes to courses like medicine. I actively want more pay for junior doctors and am pro strikes.

I don't think junior doctors get paid enough and I think their working conditions should be constantly improving. I want to be out earned by our children and your children and the children around me.

I also think on 32k the average single person can make ends meet. I think having kids and when you have them is a choice and if you choose to start your medical training and a family at the same time you're gonna have a rough few years. Like anyone starting a career and a family at the same time.

Just because I don't think 32k is the poverty line and I don't believe filly qualified GPs working full time are eligible for universal credit doesn't mean I'm anti doctor or anti people doing well.

Also you can insult my career if you like, as the typical millennial from a background of poverty who was the first to attend uni yadayadayada I'm very happy with where I've ended up in so many ways. However it does give me perspective and in the current situation in this country claiming poverty on 1 briefly lower salary of 32k is tone deaf.

As a message to anyone in the position, if you have personal debt on 32k as a junior doctor and it's crippling as it can be, speak to the debt companies, work out payment plans, spread the liability between now and more towards when your earnings increase. You can somewhat bet on future earnings to improve current circumstances.

And I'm not remotely attempting to be ageist, it's more that the majority of junior doctors m, straight from training, jn their early 20s won't have children, won't have high housing costs, won't have the biological clock ticking etc, they have time to put into their work and priorities increasing their earnings as we all do in our 20s.

They still get paid the additional amount, so their take home is significantly higher, what on earth does it matter fo uts classes as base salary or London premium?

Are you a junior doctor? You seem to be taking all of this extremely personally. I'm going to disengage because I'm worried by how much Thai thread seems to be effecting you. Have a good night and I hope you feel better soon.

Train drivers salary is almost 60k on average with the possibility to earn a cash bonus of up to 8k. They have no loans to pay off are the highest paid in Europe. In what world do they get paid so much and junior doctors so little?

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/12/23/train-strikes-these-are-the-countries-that-pay-train-drivers-the-most-and-the-least-in-eur

YANBU OP, and I’m glad that some people on here can see it although sadly a lot of the public who are not medical themselves or close to someone who is will never really understand all the costs you refer to, and I would also include in that the opportunity costs of a very long medical degree before you can even start earning in the career or have a hope of getting on the housing ladder etc.

I also think that because there generally isn’t a lot of sympathy for doctors feeling they aren’t paid enough when it is still a relatively well paid job relative to for example a minimum wage job etc, people don’t understand quite how much the financial outlook as a doctor has changed even in the past couple of decades or so since I qualified (I’m a GP). Wages have not kept pace with inflation or anything like it. Minimum wage has had to go up significantly over the same period of time as otherwise there is so much pressure on those on minimum wage, even with benefits contributions that people including children end up homeless and hungry and cold which is never a great look for the government. But they’ve got away with abandoning the squeezed middle to the point that we are not so far away from those risks ourselves anymore. While the top 1 percent continue to grown ever impossibly richer.

@Atethehalloweenchocs has beautifully demonstrated this with their chart of the change in MP’s salary compared to junior doctors over time. We have had a real terms pay cut of around 30 percent over the years since I started being a doctor when inflation is accounted for and that’s the real issue. MPs would never shortchange themselves in the way they are doing to doctors. When I started out, senior doctors had big houses, nice cars, lovely holidays, great pensions and could afford to send their kids to private school. That’s all gone now for the average everyday doctor these days. That’s one thing but it’s another when you have to worry so much about paying basic bills for housing, energy, groceries, transport to work and school.

Yes I have my own personal issues which have contributed to that in that I went through an expensive divorce and child custody battle after domestic abuse, and I now live as a single parent supporting myself and my child in an expensive area of the country. I also work part time, primarily because when I try to work more hours (which I’d ideally like to as I could really do with the money), my mental health deteriorates, even more so since the pandemic as the job has become so much more stressful due to the long waits for secondary care, pressure on A and E, and general abuse from patients. I have bipolar disorder and really have to be mindful of protecting my mental health for my own sake and also for the sake of my patients, so I feel very much stuck between a rock and a hard place these days. I won’t say I am struggling to make ends meet exactly but by no stretch of the imagination do I have a luxurious life in any way shape or form and honestly my current financial situation is not sustainable. If I were younger I would move to Australia or New Zealand as indeed so many young doctors are doing. If I were older I would retire. But I’m just kind of stuck.

OP, you are not alone in worrying about money as a doctor whatever others outside the profession chose to believe about that.

It’s always hilarious when people talk about the long and lucrative career you will soon have on threads like these.

I too was an idealistic medical student. My peers went into law and banking and stockbroking and out earned me immediately or almost immediately.

I did not choose a lucrative specialty with the prospect of lots of private work. I chose a medical subspecialty where I thought I could make a difference. This meant years more of training, research, exams. Having children as well meant that my training period as a JD was further protracted. For years, my childcare costs far outstripped my salary and I could only afford to work because I was married and therefore had a second household income. All this while working long, long hours that meant I missed out on so much of my children’s lives.

I finally became a consultant after 15 years of qualifying (the fastest I could have in my particular situation- I passed all my exams first time and at the earliest opportunity). I promptly got a pay CUT as I was earning more at the higher end of the registrar pay scale due to on calls - these are unaccounted for as a consultant).

Three years later, I am finally out earning my childcare but only by less than £500 a month. And my children are at school now!

No one is disputing that we earn relatively well eventually. But compared to careers we could have done, based on ability and hard work, it’s peanuts. My peers from uni think I’m an absolute mug. and so do I, to be honest.

it’s also very different to how it was. Even when I qualified, it was normal for consultants to have pretty large houses and send multiple children to private school on nhs salaries in/around London. Even for registrars, this was often the norm. Now? Salaries have just not kept up with inflation, everyone is struggling (unless they have an wealthy spouse) and to add insult to injury, the nhs is a shitshow. I can only afford to live in my area as we bought our tiny house almost two decades ago. We have no hope of moving up the property ladder.

I only keep going because I still (probably stupidly) think I make a difference. I would never ever tell my children to follow in my footsteps.

Good luck op, I get it and I’m sorry. Is there any way you can train somewhere cheaper to live? Interdeanery transfers can be impossible but if you have to reapply for your next stage of training, and if your specialty training opportunities allow this, do consider it.

I’m really sorry @Otalask, you’re the one that has my sympathy here.

I feel for you OP and fully support our junior doctors. I don't know how anyone can not support you all. That said my son is currently doing A levels & talking about pursuing a career in medicine & I'm gently trying to steer him away as your work life balance is poor & our government treat you & other NHS/public sector workers work such disdain.

@Happyholidays78 Medicine is still a good career in other countries and in private practice so if he intends to emigrate or go into private practice (especially in lucrative specialties like orthopaedics, plastic surgery etc), then it’s not the end of the world but otherwise I would heavily discourage it TBH. Never thought I’d be saying this back in the days when I was a junior doctor and I still believe in the principles of the NHS but it is not working out for anyone right now, patients or staff.

@Cmonluv Junior doctors are not only in their 20s. There are plenty in their 30s and 40s. Junior is a misnomer.

I'm in Australia.
We have so many UK doctors here its mad. I often think there must not be any left at home! And who can blame them really, they're on double or triple what they would be in the UK for a much easier and more laid back job.

Dont worry! It wont be long before your earnings increase to a high level.

Patience, Rome wasnt built in a day, experience brings the rewards.

The strike action is completely and utterly irresponsible.

Quite frankly you are coming across as bunch of activist students and are losing credibility as well as compromising your integrity. The public are and will continue to lose faith in the profession as a result.

Choosing the busiest time of year when the NHS is already struggling is callous, and likely to create many extra deaths (as the last one did) and patient suffering. It will change little else. The deaths are not mere collateral damage as you would have us believe, but real people.

The strike is an absolute disgrace put together by a generation now expecting instant rewards, and not prepared to wait for the wealthy and prosperous lifestyle they will achieve over a life time in medicine.

The ignorance on this thread is staggering.

Junior Doctors are not just newly-graduated youngsters fresh out of med school. Many doctors stay at Junior level for nany years and are highly experienced and capable and have huge responsibilities.

Not every medic gets to be a consultant like in business not everyone gets to be a Head of Department/CEO. Telling Junior Doctors to accept being underpaid because consultants are well paid is like telling teachers that they should accept being underpaid because headteachers are well paid. Not everyone gets to the top of the tree and you need to make sure the people lower down the tree who are doing the bulk of the actual day-to-day work have sensible remuneration for the job they are doing.

@Thatladdo maybe read my post 5 posts above yours before you say that.

A brilliant and extremely hard working colleague of mine recently retired aged 61. She couldn’t keep on after so many years of hard work.

she was fuming at the reports in the press that the ‘average’ consultant salary was £135,000. She said ‘I wasn’t on that after more than 20 years as a consultant.’ Where do they get these numbers from? It’s ludicrous.

@Thatladdo That isn't true. People can spend decades as "junior" doctors.

I'm presuming your sister lived in Auckland or some other expensive city. I've rented a flat, alone, for a good part of my working life on a receptionist's wage. You can't base life in a whole country on the expensive areas to live.

Incidentally, I live in a small town and most of the doctors at my local surgery seem to be English.

@Newchapterbeckons So your alternative is to allow the ongoing underpayment of medical staff, so that they continue leaving? Who do you think will actually ruin medical services in the UK in a few years?

Run, not ruin, although it seems apt..

I think it's difficult as at I certainly didn't have shy insight into salary specifics as a Dr, had no idea that you couldn't apply for jobs like a normal person and that you'd be sent somewhere in the country at 12wjs notice so was paying room share rents and couldn't even consider buying until I was 31. I had no idea I'd be paying 1.5k a year for gmc/indemnity etc nor that all our mandatory courses need booking 9m in advance e at 600+£ each and won't get reimbursed until 2m after you've done them (and got the attendance cert which in itself can take 3m of chasing(. Nor that I'd be sitting exams until I'm 32cthst cost 600£+ each they are totally self funded and have pass marks in the 40% range to induce resits

Yea I was probably naive but I'm the first in my family to go to uni so didn't do that much research and just assumed I could buy a house be in one place and be vaguely comfortable. I'm the last bunch to go through on 3.5k uni fees too so have it better than the newbies