Page 7 | To resent doctors who leave the profession?

LameBorzoi · 28/04/2024 11:30

SkyBloo · 28/04/2024 11:09

I find it frustrating when people have had a huge amount of state funded training and don't fully use it. I've got a friend who trained in hospital, then had a child, swapped and retrained as a gp. Has only ever worked 2-3 days a week since qualifying and now having had a second child does not plan to work again.

A huge amount of resource has been provided to her to train, there ought to be some form of repayment plan for those who then choose not to work

If she's completed training as a GP, then she's worked for at for a minimum of several years post medical school, underpaid and often in awful conditions. Exactly how many more years do you think she should be forced to work?

1HappyTraveller · 28/04/2024 11:32

Strawberrymountain · 28/04/2024 08:45

That’s true but if that is all NHS staff it probably doesn’t include medics. They managed to get themselves exempt from agenda for change so earn A LOT more than the rest of us comparable to the training, skills and responsibilities required for the job. In some medical roles that makes sense but not all. Psychiatrists for example do very little over and above psychiatric nurses but are paid more than three times as much on average. I knew one that was on nearly ten times as much (he’d boast about how much he earned).

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Maybe you need to actually look at the graph to which the poster is referring to.

Medics have had the biggest loss in wages 🤦‍♀️

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 28/04/2024 11:36

There are plenty of TV programmes, films, Internet, most people have visited a doctor or nurse in their lifetime (not including third world countries)
Before the Internet, people understood what doctors did for a living

That's genuinely hilarious. Watching a tv show or visiting a doctor means you know what it's like to be one? Bonkers. Tbf though, that does explain why many people think they're qualified to tell teachers how to do their jobs. They went to school, right? And probably watched whatever the modern equivalent of Grange Hill is.

FixTheBone · 28/04/2024 11:38

1HappyTraveller · 28/04/2024 11:32

Maybe you need to actually look at the graph to which the poster is referring to.

Medics have had the biggest loss in wages 🤦‍♀️

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Here's the april 2024 one with the recent industrial action 'payrises' and other sectors' pay included.

To resent doctors who leave the profession?

DrStrawberry · 28/04/2024 11:41

SkyBloo · 28/04/2024 11:09

I find it frustrating when people have had a huge amount of state funded training and don't fully use it. I've got a friend who trained in hospital, then had a child, swapped and retrained as a gp. Has only ever worked 2-3 days a week since qualifying and now having had a second child does not plan to work again.

A huge amount of resource has been provided to her to train, there ought to be some form of repayment plan for those who then choose not to work

Are tou being serious?

So a woman cannot decide to not work after having children?

What about all those people who get other degrees (which are also heavily subisidised by the government), and then never go on to to use their degrees? Are cross at them too?

1HappyTraveller · 28/04/2024 11:43

FixTheBone · 28/04/2024 11:38

Here's the april 2024 one with the recent industrial action 'payrises' and other sectors' pay included.

Show quote history

I think in part the reason many fail to understand the issue is because of the term ‘pay rise’ being used when in fact it is ‘pay restoration’.

However judging by some of the comments on here I suspect it’s also just due to a lack of people bothering to read basic facts.

WoshPank · 28/04/2024 11:51

SkyBloo · 28/04/2024 11:09

I find it frustrating when people have had a huge amount of state funded training and don't fully use it. I've got a friend who trained in hospital, then had a child, swapped and retrained as a gp. Has only ever worked 2-3 days a week since qualifying and now having had a second child does not plan to work again.

A huge amount of resource has been provided to her to train, there ought to be some form of repayment plan for those who then choose not to work

Best knock off the value that they've provided to the NHS during their unpaid training, then.

PostItInABook · 28/04/2024 11:54

I find it bizarre that people still think ‘we pay for their education’. If that were true doctors wouldn’t be coming out of training with thousands of pounds worth of debts. Yes, there are bursaries and whatnot but most medical and healthcare students are working for free during their university years. We call it ‘placement’ but it’s essentially the same work as those getting paid the full (crap) wage. Let’s not kid ourselves that they ‘owe’ the NHS when they’re qualified, when the NHS has taken full advantage of their free labour for years under the guise of ‘training’.

1HappyTraveller · 28/04/2024 11:56

butternutsquashes · 27/04/2024 22:01

This, for a start. There are nowhere near enough jobs. Have you not seen all of the students who didn't get an F1 job last year? I know people who have ended up in Australia / NZ because they can't get a job here!

Anyway, I'm a doctor and I'm walking away. My family and my mental health come first. Resent me all you want, I promise I won't be losing any sleep over it! I can only apologise that my work experience at 16/17 didn't give me anywhere near a realistic representation of life in the NHS before I applied for my tax-funded training. Thank goodness we are not actually physically tied to working in the NHS (although, to be honest, it does feel like it when the options are either lump the NHS as it is (and move to wherever the powers that be decide we should train) / leave for the other side of the world / leave medicine).

Medicine is a job. A stressful one. People are allowed to change jobs.

As for those who walk away to more lucrative roles - 1. it sounds like they've already given years and years of service to the NHS, 2. I highly doubt they went into medicine with the view that they were going to take some state funded training away from someone else just to then leave (surely there'd be an easier route in than that!) and 3. are they not allowed to put themselves and their families first?

My non-medic friends genuinely laugh when I talk about my work conditions because they don't think they're true. 14 hour days without a drop of water or single loo break, being screamed at by multiple staff members / patients / relatives, doing our admin in a corner whilst sitting on a bin, going home to revise for an exam which costs hundreds of our own pounds to sit, it being the total norm to find a member of staff sobbing over something in a cupboard, fixed annual leave, job locations changing drastically days before we are due to start, being denied leave for our own weddings. Need I go on?

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Good luck with your next step @butternutsquashes. Good on you for recognising the effect it is having on you/your well-being and getting out 🪴

LlynTegid · 28/04/2024 11:59

Perhaps your justifiable resentment should be at some of the reasons why anyone would value a higher income. House prices, the state of the NHS, the people who pay McKinseys a lot of money for their work. The first two of which you can do something about with other people, and vote out this government and the Conservative party at every level and opportunity.

If you have a vote on Thursday, please use it.

Destiny123 · 28/04/2024 12:03

CandyFlossPot · 28/04/2024 10:47

Someone added on here

"At 17 you don't know what being a doctor means"

Really ?

There are plenty of TV programmes, films, Internet, most people have visited a doctor or nurse in their lifetime (not including third world countries)
Before the Internet, people understood what doctors did for a living

Lol is all I can say to that. Working in the nhs is nothing like casualty. Especially when they shock asystolic patients (newsflash you cant shock flat line ecgs) and they jump back to life and are sat up chatting immediately... in 10yrs as a Dr I've seen 4 survive cpr and those that do often spend weeks in icu to get there

Seeing a gp as a teenager when u have a chest infection, gives you no damn clue about the stress a gp faces on a day to day basis

CandyFlossPot · 28/04/2024 12:06

So you are 17

Before the days of the Internet
You could roughly understand these jobs by speaking to people, watching TV, books, films
But, obviously the finer details would be missing
Teacher
Doctor
Scientist
Secretary
Shop keeper
Police
Armed forces
Dentist
Farmer
Nurse
Astronaut
Driver
Milkman/person
Firefighter
Trades person

With the invention of the Internet it is much easier to learn more detail & about a wider variety of jobs

1HappyTraveller · 28/04/2024 12:08

CandyFlossPot · 28/04/2024 10:47

Someone added on here

"At 17 you don't know what being a doctor means"

Really ?

There are plenty of TV programmes, films, Internet, most people have visited a doctor or nurse in their lifetime (not including third world countries)
Before the Internet, people understood what doctors did for a living

I mean I’ve seen quite a few James Bond films but I’m not going to start piping up on here about how I know how to be a spy 😂

Because that would be a bit arrogant… and also make me look very stupid…

PlantLight · 28/04/2024 12:10

CandyFlossPot · 28/04/2024 10:47

Someone added on here

"At 17 you don't know what being a doctor means"

Really ?

There are plenty of TV programmes, films, Internet, most people have visited a doctor or nurse in their lifetime (not including third world countries)
Before the Internet, people understood what doctors did for a living

Of course you fucking don’t know what it means to be a doctor at 17, even when you’re at uni for it. You don’t know the slog. Just as being at a school as a pupil doesn’t give you the total insight to being a teacher and once you do the job if it’s not for you you quit as you can’t half arse these jobs

Maelil01 · 28/04/2024 12:10

Monstersunderthesea · 27/04/2024 21:11

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Would so many drs be so stressed and leaving if so many drs hadn’t already left?

it’s the breathtaking hypocrisy of those doctors that piss off to Australia that pisses me off. 10 people apply to every med school place. Medics are evangelical about the funding of the NHS (with no private medical insurance funding) and yet when that funding method gives careers that pay less than an alternatively funded medical system, off they fuck, with the £250k funding this country has spent on training them.

Can we restrict places in our medical schools to those who commit to work for the NHS please? Those worthy of our investment? The rest of them really, really don’t deserve it.

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I take you’re happy to apply these rules to ALL graduates then? I can assure that considering the qualifications, the hours and the conditions the pay is derisory. As for fully funded done finish owing the equivalent of a mortgage - try paying that back on less than £20/hr!

Eieiom · 28/04/2024 12:11

Read a quote a long time ago. The working conditions of healthcare staff are your healing conditions.

Improving working conditions will have a material benefit on the care being provided.

This whole "the beatings will continue until morale improves" approach doesn't work and won't work in a global shortage of healthcare workers.

CaSal · 28/04/2024 12:19

I'm a hospital doctor. My average hours are 48/week. This means that over the course of 3 months, my rota will average at 48hrs/week. So in reality, some weeks you work much more than 48hrs. Throw into that nights, long days, weekends, twilight's etc it's very upsetting to your body clock. Going less than full time, you could still be at full time of other jobs (40hrs/week). I'm currently off with burnout. It is not sustainable in the current climate.

LameBorzoi · 28/04/2024 12:41

CandyFlossPot · 28/04/2024 12:06

So you are 17

Before the days of the Internet
You could roughly understand these jobs by speaking to people, watching TV, books, films
But, obviously the finer details would be missing
Teacher
Doctor
Scientist
Secretary
Shop keeper
Police
Armed forces
Dentist
Farmer
Nurse
Astronaut
Driver
Milkman/person
Firefighter
Trades person

With the invention of the Internet it is much easier to learn more detail & about a wider variety of jobs

It makes me so mad that some cpeople think that people should be indentured forever to decisions that they made before they were legally adults.

With all the research in the world a 17 year old does not understand the realities of a professional working life. Neither are they usually going to understand the realities of balancing the demands of a profession with the demands of parenting.

Salacia · 28/04/2024 12:44

I watched a lot of casualty growing up but don’t remember any scenes where the registrars got randomly reallocated to a hospital hours away with less than a couple of months notice and had to try and find a new house/school place/decide if their partner was going to move or they were doing long distance. Also don’t remember any scenes where they said they were finishing their shift then going home to revise for their next exam. Or scenes where they were paying their GMC fees, indemnity etc. Or scenes where they were denied leave for their own weddings despite applying a year in advance. Or scenes where they were guilted into working late despite saying they needed to drive home for their grandpa’s funeral in the morning (happened to me). Or told that they couldn’t have time off to go support their wife at a scan appointment to have an ivf-pregnancy miscarriage confirmed (happened to DH and me). Perhaps I should put in a complaint to the BBC…

1HappyTraveller · 28/04/2024 12:59

Salacia · 28/04/2024 12:44

I watched a lot of casualty growing up but don’t remember any scenes where the registrars got randomly reallocated to a hospital hours away with less than a couple of months notice and had to try and find a new house/school place/decide if their partner was going to move or they were doing long distance. Also don’t remember any scenes where they said they were finishing their shift then going home to revise for their next exam. Or scenes where they were paying their GMC fees, indemnity etc. Or scenes where they were denied leave for their own weddings despite applying a year in advance. Or scenes where they were guilted into working late despite saying they needed to drive home for their grandpa’s funeral in the morning (happened to me). Or told that they couldn’t have time off to go support their wife at a scan appointment to have an ivf-pregnancy miscarriage confirmed (happened to DH and me). Perhaps I should put in a complaint to the BBC…

Such an awful way to treat a colleague.

I’m so sorry that you experienced these things and that you weren’t treated better.

1HappyTraveller · 28/04/2024 13:12

Prrambulate · 27/04/2024 21:00

IN PARTICULAR, to take up lucrative management consultancy roles at the likes of McKinsey. I know three doctors among my uni cohort who have left the profession in the early-mid 30s, very close to or having trained at consultancy level for specialisms like ophthalmology, orthopaedics. It seems to be happening more often but that could just be my perception.

It’s frustrating because medical places are significantly capped in the UK, getting a place on a course is difficult, and training these doctors is costly. And then just to lose these qualified doctors at a time of dire need in the NHS is kind of maddening.

“In my uni cohort”

are you a doctor?

what do you do out of curiosity?

qwertyyyyy · 28/04/2024 14:01

Prrambulate · 27/04/2024 21:00

IN PARTICULAR, to take up lucrative management consultancy roles at the likes of McKinsey. I know three doctors among my uni cohort who have left the profession in the early-mid 30s, very close to or having trained at consultancy level for specialisms like ophthalmology, orthopaedics. It seems to be happening more often but that could just be my perception.

It’s frustrating because medical places are significantly capped in the UK, getting a place on a course is difficult, and training these doctors is costly. And then just to lose these qualified doctors at a time of dire need in the NHS is kind of maddening.

Get angry with Tories.
Not doctors.

qwertyyyyy · 28/04/2024 14:02

ThePure · 27/04/2024 21:16

The government caps the places because it cannot afford the postgraduate training of more Drs.

When you have a shortage of senior Drs who is going to train all the junior ones?

(Also a full time female NHS Consultant not going anywhere)

Can afford it. They decide not to fund it.

Pintoo · 28/04/2024 14:17

AlwaysFreezing · 27/04/2024 21:12

I know what you mean. But, and this is the key for me, I think they were sold a lie when they were 16/17 years old.

People really put doctors on a pedestal, it really is viewed as the zenith of careers for some people.

But, they have no idea about the moving around (I have no idea why it's done like this, but it has to be really shitty to keep moving, often hundreds of miles away) to work in a job that isn't actually well paid and has really bad conditions. How your meant to have a life outside of medicine is beyond me.

So, no I don't blame them. I feel quite sad for them. Their dream was shattered!

Even current med students feel they were misled.
Training opportunities going to PAs instead of med students, PAs starting work on vastly more money and no being thrown randomly around the country.

ThePure · 28/04/2024 14:18

I suspect the OP and some other posters are either people who didn't get into medical school or parents of people who didn't get into medical school.

If so honestly let it go it ain't all that.
Who is to say that you or your child would actually be able to do the 40+ years full time NHS service that you appear to believe is the price of the poisoned chalice that is getting into medical school. I'm 20+ years in and I will not make it another 20 that's for sure. I fantasise about retirement on a regular basis although I am only in my early 50s. It takes a lot out of you physically and emotionally and post menopause I just physically can't do all the extra unpaid hours that I used to. When my kids stop being dependent on my income I will absolutely drop my hours to be able to survive.

Other secure jobs with the opportunity to help people exist that are less painful and these days probably better remunerated and held in better esteem in society. I regret my career choice on a regular basis and I am glad my kids have shown no interest in it.