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

You don't speak for all of the public. No one can, but you in particular do not represent the majority.

Well absolutely none of that is correct, is it.

We are few months away from an election which will test the national appetite for continuing the status quo around the NHS, or increasing investment in it including through pay levels

You’ve said some mad shit on this thread but if you try and claim the ‘public mood’ will be for the former, you are absolutely certifiable

Youve managed to whip yourself up into a catastrophising frenzy on this thread that is beyond anything I’ve seen in a long while.

I hope you have some way of peeling yourself down from the ceiling because as you keep pointing out, this is not the week to have a cardiac event…

I think I do represent the majority. Have you seen ANY support because I haven’t near our hospitals. People just look away from the very few drs that bothered to turn up (most didn’t)

You seem to be confusing JD with conservatives. JD are aiming for higher pay not for the public to "value them". It is the conservatives that need to be "valued" in order to keep their jobs. Having said that, if you want people to realise you do an important job, try not doing it for a few days.

And why the hell should we give a rats arse what you think?

If you support this activist led charade that’s on your conscience, not mine.

Oh give over. No one values the conservatives! It’s a thankless job being in government. Starm won’t fair any better.

No patient has been 'left to die'. Utterly disgusting rhetoric. Consultants and SAS doctors are providing cover so no one will be left without emergency care.

You want to see any doctor in 5 years ? Then pay them. Because they are so fed up they are leaving. If we don't have 'junior' doctors then in 5-10 years we will have no consultants. Oh and 'junior' doctors are the backbone of the NHS.

£15.33 an hour is what an F1 earns. In Christmas Day. They are no longer guaranteed a job after F2, as there are not enough training places (not because we don't need them, but because the government won't allow them).

I'm afraid the way doctors feel after this government means many will leave regardless of pay. The damage is done.

Cutting inheritance tax will cost £8billion, and affects 4% of the population. Giving the doctors what they want will cost £1billion. The strike has already cost over £2billion, which has miraculously been found down the side of the sofa. This is NOT about money, that's there if they want it. It's about killing the NHS.

Goodbye NHS. Oh, and those doctors will earn a whole heap more in a private system of healthcare.

Just wondering how the 'Junior Doctors' (crap name for well-qualified medical professionals btw) arrived at 2006 as their point of reference to illustrate their case for pay-erosion?

I'd bet more than a guess that if a different date were chosen and other variables such as the WTD (eg: cap on 48hrs pw for all workers), pensions, BMA refusal to increase med school places despite population growth, etc, etc were factored in then perhaps their case for a 35% increase would be somewhat modified.

You don't even represent the majority on this thread, you've disagreed with basically everyone. You definitely don't represent the majority of the general public. Some maybe, but not the majority.

I know many, many people, from different backgrounds, who support the doctors. They may not be on picket lines, but that doesn't mean they don't support them.

Have you been wandering around hospitals all day or do you work in one? I don't think you mentioned that.

No of course they haven't. They spend all their time spouting hate and rubbish on MN.

Oh and the consultants and SAS doctors have NOT agreed a deal. Their unions have put a deal to their members. The result is not yet known, so some politicians are going to look really stupid if they reject it.

@HK3444 Where is (are) the dad/dads? Or was it a sperm doner situation? CHILDREN ARE EXPENSIVE- look right there and no further!

Solicitors also can struggle and don't start threads on MN. Stop wanting to put the country's inflation back up with all 35% pay rise demands, no matter how you feel you got there. Do you not also care about those at risk of losing their homes or small businesses aka their livelihood the longer interest rates stays high due to 'junior doctors' inflationary demands.

I say go Rishi, and Victoria go.

All other sectors of the society are struggling. Solicitors also spend many years at law school and then pray to get a training contract which is never guaranteed.

Of course, when the economy improves, do approach the new Gov with whatever % increase you want.

There endth the lesson.

How many hours is part-time?

Do you have other options like Pharmacy? That's more likely to be regular hours?

Of course patients are dying!

Tens of thousands of operations including urgent surgery have now been cancelled. There is barely any night cover at all. Do you seriously imagine that 50% of all drs can strike and everyone gets the life saving care they need? If so, then why are they even there!

Most medics accept that there will be consequences for some patients and as uncomfortable as that is for you to hear, it is the truth.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/01/nhs-strikes-fuel-record-number-excess-deaths/

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/04/critically-ill-patients-inevitably-die-junior-doctors-strike

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/deaths-tripled-after-first-set-strikes-junior-doctors/

Patients ARE dying as unpalatable as that is.

Lets hope it’s not your cherished mother or child.

@Newchapterbeckons
what do you think about these excess deaths? long before the Junior Doctor strikes.
https://www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/articles/long-ae-waits-associated-23000-excess-deaths-royal-college-estimates

Interesting that you talk about the task being thankless in government. Have you personal experience?

And more people will die if doctors leave the profession.

I think its Jeremy Hunt all panicked that people might actually want doctors to be available so he might have to pay them!

Of course not, but people never ever stop moaning.

We need tighter laws.