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

@Benibidibici How many doctors do you actually know? Consultants are reasonably well paid, but nothing like they could be earning in engineering or finance.

On average, doctors are among the highest paid professions in our country. Yes the pay when still training is not high but for a typical doctor who starts as a graduate in early 20s, the pay by mid thirties is very good compared to almost any other occupation.

I do think the London/south east weighting isn't high enough though

The high earners are typically surgeons, who are a small proportion of specialists!

My cousin was in this position, she was sick of struggling to pay her rent, transport to work etc, while her housematr had no education beyond GCSEs but was earning more money as an admin assistant and on fewer hours.

She decided to leave the UK and moved to Canada, her starting wage was £63,000 and her wages increased every six months. She has been there almost five years and is earning more than a consultant would in the UK, has been able to afford a lovely detached home, brand new car and holidays abroad.

Surely you know their current wage is unsustainable?

Lameborzoi loads.

The consultants are all on 100k plus, with very generous pension provision compared to anything you get in engineering or finance. Engineering pay really isn't that high. lots of GPs i know are getting 70/80k on 3 days a week.

Finance and law can pay very highly indeed if you make it to upper ranks, but those can also require very very long hours.

That sounds really awful for you @Otalask . However, that isn't caused by junior doctors striking. Both your lack of hysterectomy and junior doctors' strikes are symptoms of the Conservative government deliberately running the NHS into the ground. Blame them, not OP.

Lameborzoi

Not true. I know high earning cardiologists, oncologists, GPs and anaesthetists, and one who does something in respiratory medicine.

Defined benefit pensions are worth a hell of a lot. I have a 6 fig salary and no matter what i put in my employers stakeholder plan my forecast pension is lower than my mothers teaching pension.

I support the strikes. All so doctors should be paid more for the hours they do and responsibility they have. It’s that simple!

Most of the medics I know retire mid to late fifties with gold plated pensions.

Not everyone in finance earns sky high salaries either. You are assuming all drs should compare against the most successful small minority of people in finance earning a bomb. There are a small number of drs earning loads with clinical excellence type awards too.

Very very simplistic view. If only it were that easy!

Do you actually know that or just regurgitating Daily Mail tropes? Whats uour evidence? Have you read the King's Fund report and other research that shows there are less managers than any other comparable industry?
Part of the problem is the strive for efficiency has stripped so much out that there is no slack for anything.

The chiding of the OP for not appreciating their wage is depressing.

Doctors are on a crap pay in this country, which is why so many are leaving to work abroad.

The fact is no one is paid enough in this country. Wages have been stagnant for years. We've become reliant on an economy which was just about held together by cheap interest, ridiculously rising house prices and businesses being allowed to underinvest and underpay through a mix of exploiting cheap immigration and relying on the certainly that the government will top up the wages of their lowest earners with UC (this isn't a bash at either immigrants or benefits recipients, they always end up as the undeserving punching bags for crap government policy)

We have a terrible, unproductive, unbalanced economy and when people (rightly) demand more pay to keep up with the COL they just get bashed for..being a doctor? Having worked hard to get into their career? How can anyone be resentful that a doctor earns more when houses out earn all workers by a ridiculous degree year on year??

Junior doctors should be on more. I do agree.

But OP's financial status isn't just about being a doctor.

Few occupations pay enough to support people comfortably as single parents, particularly in the early/training years.

Only 7% of the U.K. population earn over £70000, which is about basic rate for fulltime U.K. consultants and GP Partners. So they are better paid than 93% of the population. Big hitters in finance and engineering are also more likely to have additional qualifications on top of their basic degrees.

Which all sounds very acceptable until you get to the truth - that they are demanding a 35% increase that is totally and utterly ridiculous. They have created this mess by being so greedy.

Yabu. No one walks out of uni and is able to immediately support a family comfortably.

Everyone has to save, be prudent and doctors are no different. If you want a comfortable life wait till you’re a consultant before having a family. Otherwise it will be a struggle.

Yes exactly. A single mother managing alone is going to struggle in any profession.

Completely this ^^

Most people ‘in finance’ or ‘in engineering’ do not earn 70k. They also can’t do private work to supplement their salaries.

The pensions are certainly rockstar proportions compared to the public sector but they never seem to talk about that I have noticed!

Newchapterbeckons

I am one of the high earning finance people referred to. Im having to plough 25% of what i earn into my crappy pension to avoid penury in retirement

Your last paragraph probably pulls in every HCA and carer your family come across and probably many lower band nurses (the latter have to be graduates nowadays and the full bursary was stopped by George Osborne). The nurses strikes resolved fairly quickly as I think that many nurses just couldn’t afford to keep striking.

@Newchapterbeckons I mean, in most union negotiations they will start with a very high percentage with the understanding that it will be negotiated down.

I just don't get the discomfort with people negotiating for themselves in this country. Obviously strikes will have an effect but this won't have come from nowhere, they'll have been months of negotiations and talks prior to this plus a ballot. Doctors and nurses have never really gone on strike like this, why is this not viewed as a government failure rather than a fault on the part of the staff?

In a way it’s a shame that nurses were lumped in with all the other Agenda for Change staff when taking industrial action. They didn’t settle for a below inflation pay rise but the unions (not RCN) decided to accept the offer on their behalf. The junior doctors do deserve pay restoration. They have already had a better offer than other nhs staff got and I reckon it will be further increased.