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

We pay 120 a month as a family of theee that works in our local trust, I only go in one day but sadly have to pay for a years pass . DH pays 4.5 k indemnity as the Trust cover is rubbish

Yes this is precisely the point!

Parking is NOT generally free.
At our local large city teaching hospital there are very few places for staff to park; they have to queue for a permit and still pay. Roads locally are no parking and supermarkets etc operate timed free parking. Agency staff filling in have no hope of parking and have to get taxis.
Family members working at other hospitals ( junior doctors) all pay to park.

A lot of people today are entitled they want it now they don't want to work up to it. I don't think the op is unreasonable with how she feels but there is an end to it.

Firstly, they aren't the same age as "fresh graduates" given they will have done a five or six year degree rather than a three year one (and will owe a lot more money!) . Secondly, given someone earning minimum wage working 48 hours a week would be paid 26K a year now it isn't actually a "damn good salary".

What’s so odd about a nanny?
when you work erratic shift hours, requiring early starts, late finishes and no clear finish times, you can’t exactly rely on after school clubs

£500 a month will buy/lease and insure a very bog standard car

And pray tell which London and SE hospitals ‘generally’ have free staff parking, either on site or nearby

And they are much older than their contemporaries when they start their first jobs , my eldest DS is earning far less that his 24 year old siblings and working a lot more hours than them as well as studying for post grad exams .

Only just read the first page and am absolutely gobsmacked at many of the comments!!!

"surely junior doctors should know they wont be on mega bucks"
"Lucrative career"
"Please be aware that most of the people on NHS waiting lists will never have your earning capacity. Think about that while you strike and make those lists longer."
"Maybe you need to share your income, outgoings, situation and career earning prospects before any of us can comment."
"Did you not know how much you'd be earning when you started studying?"

Wow, just wow.

YANBU OP.

OK, so we'll tell all 17 year olds not to go into medicine because the conditions will be rubbish and they may never be able to afford to have a family before they physically can't have one and they'll all decide to go be accountants or lawyers or retail managers etc instead.

Then we'll have NO doctors. How does that future look?

No, people dying because of other people wanting more money isn't acceptable. But if its not sorted out, people will die because there is no one to provide medical treatment at all.

We can't afford it, but we'll have to figure it out somehow.

Unless you have a solution?

So fucking what you have to pay for parking?! Join the rest of the world!

You are not a special case.

Its the god like complex again.

The outrage you have to PAY for anything

That's not the point, you said free parking, not anyone else.

YANBU. The pressure, responsibility and expectation on junior doctors is so much greater than on other new graduates in different careers. I’m a midwife (and someone who’s struggling to see a doctor atm) and I fully support the strikes. That said, please spare a thought for your nursing and midwife colleagues. The govt give even less of a shit about us.

Have you any idea how much junior doctors have to pay for training, CPD events, exams, insurance etc?

I do have a solution, thank you for asking.

How about you make a decent request of 15% and the government meet you at 13%?

I have never paid to park at work in my entire career in education. If DH paid during his long career involving UK and overseas travel he claimed the charges back, even if it was on parking meters.

Well that hit a nerve, didn't it? Perhaps too close to the truth? And for your information I don't read the Daily Fail, so you're wrong on that count, too.

When I need your permission to post something that I know through having a number of family members and friends who work in the NHS at various levels, then you will be the first to know (and that will be never).

I was a junior doctor a very long time ago, and I felt I was doing OK, with a decent lifestyle. BUT. The pay was relatively much more than now, compared to the cost of living. I was married to another doctor. I did locum work on many many weekends and holidays to support the lifestyle. I did not have my own child until after I became a consultant, and was by then married to a non-doctor, who gave up his own professional career to look after our child. The OP is not in that position.

They are handsomely rewarded with a job for life anywhere in the world, gold plated pension with a financially lucrative career that accumulates over the years. Rewarding, highly respected work that actually matters.

Firstly, not a doctor and therefore not something I have any control over.

Secondly, what makes 13% a "reasonable" amount? Have you done all the maths for all the budgets of all the doctors? Have you factored in the responsibility and the inflation and the rising cost of living?

Where is the 13% coming from anyway? How is that funded any more easily than the 35% over several years? Who is paying for it?

If that's your solution, provide your workings out.

I 100% support the strikes.
I don't work in the nhs but my work means me often having to visit patients and families in the A&E department. The new scaremongering in the last few days about queues of people in A&E.... well it's like that everyday when the strikes aren't in too! I've been down to A&E about 5 times in the past two months, every single times there are trollies of people lining the corridors.
The stress of going to work every day and dealing with this, having the care of all these people in your hands and seeing no light at the end of the tunnel for improvements to be made, there aren't many who would do that day in day out for what these junior doctors are paid. My absolute respect to them.
To the ones saying we all work hard, yes we do, but the levels of stress are completely incomparable to most other jobs. And I work in child protection which is extremely high stress too, but I don't think it's as bad as the stress of being a junior doctor.

Plus as a pp has said, they also have to pay out a lot of money for the up keep of their qualifications.

It doesn’t matter that they have been set up to fail with a 35% demand…

So you think it should be lower?

Junior doctors earn £14 an hour in their first year, but they earn a lot more in subsequent years - I looked it up on the BMA website - https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/junior-doctors-pay-scales/pay-scales-for-junior-doctors-in-england, a second year foundation doctor gets 5k more than first year. Does it happen like that in most graduate jobs? I also see there are allowances for on call, and weekends etc. I know in many graduate jobs you're expected to do the extra hours to finish projects as part of the job, you're not paid 'hourly' or overtime.
Starting salaries as junior doctors are still 5k above average graduate pay, but it is the earning potential that ultimately makes it worthwhile. I don't disagree that junior doctors don't deserve more, but I don't understand why they need 'so much more 35%' when they do have considerable ability to not only earn more but also to increase their earnings far above that of your average graduate.

You won't get that peak of career pay with an degree in eg agriculture for example. However one could argue it's likely you'll have less stress and responsibility, and a far nicer 'office', but you'll be unlikely to get on call allowances, overtime or even weekend 3-15% extra.... and chances are you'll have to work every weekend in summer harvest.

You have to take the rough with the smooth. I don't think people think like that these days, they want it all and they want it now.

My best friend's father always used to say he knew his civil service job was OK on pay, but he knew he could earn more if he went into business. However he knew ultimately his civil service pension would win out in the end, he retired before he was 60 and luckily he lived till his 90s - he 'earned' more in pension than he ever earned as a civil servant.

stares in nanny hourly rate

and yes yes I know their salaries go up considerably over the years and private industry pay is different, but I do find it shocking considering the qualifications and training involed

@Newchapterbeckons I don't know what would be reasonable as I have no sight of the doctor's earnings or the country's budgets. But, unless you're Jeremy Hunt neither do you. And from reading all of your comments, you have no clue about most of the issues you're arguing over. You're just arguing for the sake of it, given you change your stance on everything as soon as someone corrects you and have no facts to back any of it up.