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

@RosesAndHellebores “I have dealt with an F2 and an ITM3 doctor in the last three years. They were both unspeakably arrogant, reductive and didn't know their stuff. On that basis, I absolutely do not support the strikes. Junior Dr's need to raise their game imo.

The consultants I have dealt with however are worth their weight in gold and gave a far better and more respectful bedside manner”

… and how do you think consultants become consultants? I am sorry that you experienced two junior doctors you didn’t like (out of 1000s) but is that really a good enough reason to throw all their colleagues out with them?

Sorry op that you are struggling. I hope things get better soon. I don't think people appreciate the challenges facing doctors and the relatively poor pay compared to comparable professions is the final kick in the teeth. In comparable professions your employer often will pay or contribute to your professional memberships and exams, not so for doctors. In some years as a junior doctor memberships and exam fees I reckon can cost a couple of months of your take home pay. And junior doctors now will also have huge amounts of student debt to be paying off.

@MrNovember benefits are only relevant for families 0on a very low income or with young children getting childcare.
Our family - 2 adults and 2 children with an household income just over £33k, and all we get is child benefit.

@TwoUnderTwitTwoo presumably not by being rude, reductive and barely competent I imagine.

Yes I agree. I also wonder whether there is an element of sexism in the erosion of doctors pay - it is increasingly female dominated and therefore (sadly) deemed less important “care work” or assumed that it’s just “pin money” and doctors can survive on their husbands wages.

I can believe it when OP says they’re struggling. I imagine she’s done her sums. There’ll always be suggestions of the chicken feeding 5 for a week, or how to tighten your belt even further, but I’m more suspicious of those.

Agreed. My hourly rate is around £38ph. I do not have a degree, I did not study for 6 years. I am not particularly smart. I fucked around all through school. I do not pay student fees.
If we are relying on these Doctors to sacrifice 6 years of earning potential, working hard to achieve the sort of grades to get into medical school, let alone through it, then get them to take responsibility of other people's health...
They deserve to have their stress concentrated within the workplace, and not to go home to live a less comfortable existence than other people who have obtained easier careers.

No one deserves to not be able to pay their bills, with the cost of living £14 an hour doesn't go far so people will struggle, but our Dr's should be further from that struggle than they are.

The problems with the NHS aren't the GPs fault. They're the ones taking a constant battering from the NHS and the patients they face daily.

@RosesAndHellebores that's terrible for anyone working with humans, let alone in a medical environment.

You get this kind of attitude in young workers in all professions though. They tend to think for a while they know it all and feel superior before there comes the realisation that they really dont know that much at all and are in for lifelong learning. Then the attitude changes.

Op another HPC here. Please keep going you are definitely all.Worth more. Not sure we will have any Jnr Drs in 3years. DD on paper is a perfect med school candidate, straight 9's bio ,chem and maths A level. I've talked her firmly out of Medicine. I've seen to many female jnr docs chewed up and thrown out by the system

Not at all I'm saying it's a pay scale with a starting salary and incremental increases.

I'm wondering if ops expectations were equivalent to consultants salary much quicker than is realistic or if it's that starting salary should cover basic living costs.

Basically I'm wondering is the post a divisive journalism post rather than a real person.

If it's a real person and she's a fairly newly qualified junior doctor with children then that's bloody hard going, salary should undoubtedly be higher.

If she's much further up the pay scale but expected much more luxury then it's a somewhat different story

YANBU, it’s a shite situation.

my son wanted to do medicine for a few years I am so glad he went off it.

Maybe the waiting lists would go down if we paid doctors fairly and treated them better (and hadn’t made it much more difficult to recruit due to Brexit)
They are under huge amounts of stress and pressure, with massive responsibility, working long unsociable hours with inflexible rota systems and job allocation.

The people to blame for the shit situation the NHS is in are the Tory government, not doctors going on strike. If conditions and pay don’t improve, neither will the waiting lists.

Well, no, but I am sure they had bad days along the way and that it was fed back to them. The two junior doctors that you dislike sound unpleasant and probably burnt out. Did you put in a complaint? It may have benefitted them if you did - no one goes into medicine planning to be rude or dismissive of patients. Unfortunately a career in medicine appears to really warp people in the thick of it. I don’t know why anyone would do it and I’m glad I avoided it even though it was pushed heavily by my teachers as I was “sciencey” 🙄

YABU. Competition is fierce to get on a degree course in medicine. And the earning potential through a doctor's career is very good. I think the junior doctors are in them wrong with their unreasonable demands and strike action.

NOBODY who works their fingers to the bone should be struggling to live, whether you're a JD, a supermarket worker or a street cleaner.

It's absolutely disgusting that people are working so so hard and yet struggling so much.

So should they just leave the job then so there are no doctors?

To be honest I think medicine is going to ver very fair game to be replaced by a lot of AI in the next 20 years - a computer will be able to make a much better judgement than a human. People will be needed to support the human aspects of health bug the ‘what is wrong with me’ will be determined by feeding in scans/blood test results/other obs into a computer programme. I think it’s why governments are not that worried.

If your kids were younger and requiring childcare, you would probably be getting some sort of benefit to pay towards the childcare (UC or working tax credits). But I would suggest you check again that your are definitely not entitled to anything.

either way… its not a race to the bottom. If we expect to be treated by the best and brightest medical professionals, then we need to pay them appropriately: or at the very least enough that they are not living in poverty

The shadow health secretary has already said on the radio that he would negotiate but not give them what they are asking for.

Yes, I suspect waiting lists are getting worse as everyone who hasn’t left the NHS already is just too bloody exhausted to do any extra work and Britain can’t import as many doctors any more - not so much because of brexit but because foreign doctors don’t want to come here to work as they can see now that pay is much better in Canada, aus, NZ. That matters a lot when they’re separated from family and sending money home. It’s a sacrifice that’s worth even less when patients complain about foreign doctors.

This.

I don't support the strikes and no one I've spoken to does now.

Jeezey peeps. I find this hilarious: how can a younger person possibly know more than me.

im in IT: and delight in working with younger colleagues: they often have a fresh perspective on things and can sometimes show me better and quicker ways of doing things

Completely support you op. We cannot expect anyone to devote years to study, long hours, huge responsibilities and not reward them properly. If we continue this way, don’t be surprised when doctors move away to countries where their skills are valued and rewarded. 100% behind you

@HK3444 YANBU 100% I train SPR's whilst on their route to be consultants, I earn more than them.. those with children are talking longer to progress due to childcare and needing to work part time and not making it up the pay scales as their fellow male colleagues are.
some SPR's I've trained have now left the UK and gone to Australia, for much better pay and lifestyle. I have friends (midwifes, nurses and radiographers) who have also left and moved to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. All have tried to persuade me to follow them.
a dr friend gave up her nhs permanent contract and now locums in ED's, picking and choosing shifts and earning more that way.
the nhs is broken and surving on the good will of existing staff who are broken and burnt out and relying on us to feel guilty for not working all the overtime to try and help get patients through when their is such a lack of staff.

and as for the poster who was unbelieving about the nhs charging staff to park at work.. they've done this for years (let us have a break in lockdowns) but we now pay and a lot of the times there's not even spaces left for us..

My eldest (16) is doing 4 A-Levels (Physics, Computer Science, Maths x 2). Predicted straight A's so luckily won't end up a teacher like me (thank God!)
He wants to have a decent standard of living so will probably go into accounting like his dad.
Definitely wouldn't want him to become a doctor!