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

Best post on this thread 👏👏👏

Very unlikely as u til qualified shed have been band 4 or below.

@MrNovember I have said I support doctors getting more. But I find well off people think benefits are more generous than they are. Trust me we are not entitled to anything except child benefit. So please do not try to say doctors have the same income as lower paid people because of benefits, it is not true.

If I had children in childcare/nursery then we would get childcare credits to help with the costs. We are not entitled to what used to be working tax credits and are now just universal credit as our income is too high.

Yep - I have been explicitly told by overseas doctors I am trying to recruit that they won’t come for the salary we are offering.

I wish they had decided that before I wasted my time shortlisting and interviewing them, because the salary was posted on the job advert, but there you go. It’s a real thing.

Canada is apparently super popular right now for IMGs - easier than the US to get into a training program, but you can move across the border as soon as you finish training, as the qualifications are recognised in the US.

WTAF!
Doesn't need a genius to work out that's why there is a shortage of GPs. That's disgusting that wages are so low.

I know someone who discouraged their DD going into medicine because of the low salary and lenght of training.
They are now a dentist driving a flash car!

The current government doesn't care about what will happen next week let alone in 20 years.

@newyearnewglue My guess is that you are entitled to childcare part of universal credit. You can get that on a fairly high income.

Also are you basing £14 an hour on a 40 hour working week or extrapolating the working hours directive etc? So £14 an hour... If you consider it an 80 hour week? Because at absolute entry level of 32300 you're talking £15.50 or so an hour for a 40 hour week. You're the talking a pretty steep increase if she's 5/10/15 years in. So she very quickly overtakes a lot of jobs with such low starting salaries or even higher strong salaries. Then there's the London allowance too.

I support doctors being paid more. But there are various comments on this thread about how hard done by doctors are that are simply misleading.
Please do not misrepresent your situation to get support, you just piss people off.

You are a full time fully qualified GP earning below the requirements for UC top ups?

Or you work very part time hours with a much higher full time equivalent salary?

Fully qualified GP starting salary is around 68k.

Single person eligible for UC top up limit is around 15k a year.

How many hours a week are you contracted for?

Do you also have a partner who takes your household out of UC eligibility?

@C0untDucku1a she doesn’t sound shocked to me - she sounds like she’s really struggling to get by. Being shocked at not earning loads and not having enough money to cover basic needs are miles apart.

You may think they're being unreasonable. However there are very few left! One thing I really admire about young doctors trained in the UK is that they really couldn't care less what ill informed members of the public think, they're packing their bags to live and work where their credentials are recognised, appreciated and properly remunerated. The NHS is in an appalling state due to poor working conditions and consequent dire retention.

OP definitely think DRs are underpaid for their training,experience and unsociable hours. There is a reason why all the friends my children have ,who have now qualified are out in Oz ! Well paid,free accommodation and treated with respect!
My son is going to join them in the spring!

It's not just female junior doctors who can't progress towards the consultant jobs.
The system matches the number of medical graduates with foundation posts but it is the next two stages that there are not enough core or specialist training posts available so juniors spend time stuck at a level and cannot progress.
The nine year path from graduation to being a consultant can quite easily turn into fifteen years.

Chris Whitty is on record as saying we train doctors to be too specialised, too quickly. Looking at the patient more widely and not just making a pattern-diagnosis will make a doctor + AI far more effective when rare conditions present.
Dr House is not common anywhere on the planet.

YANBU I fully support the junior doctors.

My d is a med student. Top grade GCSEs. Busted a gut to get straight A*s at A level while holding down a job, doing voluntary work, and prepping for med school entrance tests and interviews. Med school will be 6 years (she's in year 5 now), we scrimp to help her through, she does some tutoring but will still graduate with about £100k debt. She's worked hard to stay in the top 10% of her cohort as they used to allocate F1 jobs on merit via point scores and she wants to be able to live with her partner - they've just changed the system so F1 jobs will be pretty much randomly allocated so she could be put anywhere in the country.

Look at the image below - why should someone who's worked so hard for so many years be paid less than the domestic staff? I don't think the domestics should be paid less, but that's just wrong.... My d earns more now her hour for online gcse tutoring than she will for making life or death decisions on night shifts as a doctor 🤷‍♀️

In contrast my son coasted through A levels and uni, and works in IT. At 25 he was on £65k. Plus bonuses, great pensions, free gym, health insurance, parking etc. He's good at what he does, but just why??

@coffeeaddict77 lol, I don’t disagree. And I’m not anti doctor. I’m anti status quo, especially throwing money at a problem which is much more overwork related than money related. (To an extent - I’ve already said all working expenses should be paid, and student loan write offs for service).

I fully support your right to strike OP.

The lack of respect (socially and and monetarily) for public sector workers and professionals is forcing the most capable young people (like yourself) to want to pack it in and leave. It’s really sad.

Why start on £30k as a teacher or junior doctor when you can make more as a recruitment consultant?

The long hours, emotional pressure and accountability of doctors should definitely be acknowledged and paid for properly. They don’t deserve to have to deal with life and death decisions and then come home to worry about their bills and putting food on the table.

OP, I’m astounded by the some of the replies on this thread. Surely, by now, it’s clear that this country has terrible public sector infrastructure and funding. Whether this is in Health, Social Care, Education, Housing, Transport etc the list is endless. Doctors aren’t paid enough for the cost and level of education and training needed. And ultimately as a society we are are all accountable. Governments have failed in delivering numerous electoral mandates and are not being held accountable. I’m really sorry you are struggling. Thankyou so much for the job you are doing, I will continue to support your strikes and raise awareness.

@HostessTrolley For exactly the same reasons I'm encouraging my son to become an accountant!

Sure you are love. Stop with the propoganda please. Doctors got out of agenda for change so you're in a good position. Why is it doctors retire early or drop shifts to reduce their overall pension pots hmm?? Is cause they get too full of money in the end?
Your earning potential over your career is huge and you are heavily privileged compared to many other nhs professions, and non nhs careers!

And as for all your professional fees, maybe talk to an accountant as I'm sure you can get tax relief on them when you do your tax return my dear.

Yanbu - junior doctors are woefully underpaid. The reporting on the strikes makes me angry, so much blame on the strikers whereas the government is the actual culprit for eroding the real-terms value of the payscale over the years until being a doctor is totally devalued.

@HostessTrolley Doctors are not paid more than cleaners except from your post for one day of the year.
I support doctors getting more, but some of these comments are just pissing me off.
Do you know what it is like to work and live on minimum wage in spite of a degree? I do and it is not easy. Stop pretending you are living worse than people on really low wages.

There are lots of things that make medicine challenging. My DD was academically suited and initially keen but too much of a perfectionist - she would have been carrying around the patients who didn't make it forever.
People get sick, win the lottery, have family tragedies, choose medicine for the wrong reasons - we need to train twice as many doctors as we expect to start in order to get the number we need.
Simultaneously, we have forced nurses to get degrees with transferable skills that are better rewarded in other industries.
It's not the way to ensure that the NHS thrives.