Junior Doctors Unemployment in August

[PurpleFairyLights]

Name changed but long term poster. Have a child that is in this situation with 100k of student debt.

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2025-05-07/bma-we-could-potentially-see-thousands-of-unemployed-doctors

Unbelievable this was allowed. Most countries protect their medical graduates.

I'm not sure if those who are missing the point entirely are doing so deliberately. Look at the graph upthread, read the linked article. Both make the problem abundantly clear. Yes, we know that other graduates may have to apply for lots of jobs before they secure them but they have something that doctors don't, choice. I am not asking for special treatment of my doctor dc, just that they may stand a chance of securing a job or even an interview. They studied for a medical degree, (incidentally with very high A level grades to those who are implying that it is now an easy degree to get on). Young people apply to medicine because they want to practice medicine. To have the odds so stacked against them is unfair and wasteful of taxpayer's money.

Medical employment is not the problem, or rather it is in the UK but not in Australia and elsewhere. Many countries welcome our well trained and capable doctors for entry level jobs. The problem is the career path. I assume that specialist training in the US is difficult to come by, so there is a real risk of getting stuck on the first rung of the ladder.

Getting into medical school is tough. DD also has a good degree in engineering. She wants a career in medicine. If all she is offered is a job with no prospects she might be better off switching to engineering. The skills and experience post F2 doctors have acquired in terms of resilience, interpersonal and communication skills etc work well in a lot of different careers. So it is increasingly common for what should be our future consultants to be switching to law or banking.

@crowonabranch those who think getting in is so easy should be made to sit the UCAT 😂.

I think some people just don’t like doctors. Until they need one.

@Needmoresleep I'm certainly not trying to be rude or divert the thread, but I will state the reality of the situation.
Yes, 48 hours a week seems like a normal working week. My childen, working in the City certainly worked at least that much in their first couple of years. My husband was a junior doctor when they nominally worked 80 hours a week, the first 40 for normal pay and the second for half pay. He also never finished work on time. At the same time he worked for his Royal College exams and MD, had papers published in the BMJ and BJS as lead author, won international prizes for research and progressed to being a consultant. By that stage because of the rigourous training he had far more experience and expertise than new consultants now and would certainly not regard himself as academic. It is perfectly possible for the bright and motivated to work hard in clinical jobs and polish up their academic credentials. Some people will be doing that and they will get jobs.

the unpalatable facts are:

There are 12000 new graduates. They are guaranteed work for two years only, after that recruitment is competitive.

Five or six times fewer doctors retire each year than currently enter the system.

In order to whittle the number down from the numbers at the bottom to the number at the top there are fewer jobs at each level. Some will not be promoted, no matter how good some people think they are.

Even if every doctor got a training position this year, these are fixed term training contracts. At the end of them they can't just stay at that grade, they have to progress to the next level or leave.

The only solutions to this are for new graduates to realise that they may not work as doctors, or for the government to put a much lower cap on medical student numbers, or for the world to change and for there to be many more hospitals, clinics, nurses, doctors and all the support staff they need. I can't see anyone rushing to pay for that.

Trying to prevent IMG 's applying for jobs is wishful thinking. I think from the numbers you quoted there are about the same number of them as British graduates? The won't get every job but of course they will get some. The strongest British and international candidates will be successful, the weaker ones will not.

Mine has just finished a run of 78 hours of nights. Does working in the city require 8pm - 9am shifts ?

@oddandelsewhere if your husband is a doctor I’m surprised you are not aware of the issues of IMGs not staying in the UK for more than a few years. So they take training spots but leave before they finish, leaving huge rota gaps. Which can’t be filled as you can’t just appoint an ST5.

it costs £230,000 to train each doctor. The whole point of capping med school places is to ensure they all have jobs to recoup this investment. There are 13,000 training spots for 12,000 UK grads. I’m really not sure why anyone is finding that maths tricky. 30,000 + applicants have also applied from abroad. Ethically it’s wrong to strip other countries of their doctors. But it’s also v extensive.

But I really do think some people just think doctors are all rich and posh. Not comp school kids who have worked so hard since year 10 to be rewarded with unemployment. If there is another pandemic do not expect the doctors (& nurses) to have any goodwill towards the NHS any more, that boat has sailed I think.

@oddandelsewhere . You say only solutions are for newly qualified doctors to not work as doctors? The ONLY solution? Have you not read the thread?

Or kill someone if make a mistake as so exhausted?

I don't think married to a doctor but watched too much Cardiac Arrest that shows reality of those days of training very realisticly

Failed to mention that in those days there were no training places. Doctors used to move from 6 month job to 6 month job they applied for so got to consultant level via an ad hoc system.

Look, I get that some of you don't like the competitive system which prevails for doctors progressing. I completely get that the health service now is a basket case, that's why most doctors actively dissuade their own children from applying to medical school. I'm afraid what I don't get is the rudeness towards someone who just happens to have a different opinion. It also does not count as derailing to politely disagree with someone.
The insults and unfounded assumptions are extremely unattractive.
I am neither a snob not a man. You can think I'm an ignorant bore if you like, (I'm not, I'm a realist) but you don't need to say it. I have fairly unflattering opinions on a few posters on here but I will keep them to myself. I promise I don't hate doctors, particularly not the one I'm married to! And I'm happy to say that I never in a million years would have wanted to be one myself.

Suspect anyone not understanding the issues may not have read the thread or is out of touch with current recruitment issues, especially IMG figures since 2021. Unfortunately, there have been some on similar threads who potentially have vested interests in IMG recruitment. £32000 plus per IMG for placing IMGs in roles within the NHS is good business for some academies. If this is reducing training capacity, then it's scandalous. Sponsorship licences need to be reviewed given the current issues. PLAB needs to be paused. CREST forms for new IMGs should not be signed off overseas. Overseas consultants should not be allowed to apply to entry level jobs to get their foot in the door. As for the licensing exams, they should be sitting the UK MLA not the easier PLAB exams which are made to be MLA compliant.

As for the assertion that these IMGs are all securing the posts on merit, here's something to consider. Someone I know who sat PLAB 2 said when they came over to the UK to do the mock exams, just a few days before the actual exam, the person who owns the academy running the PLAB course told them exactly which areas to focus on. These exam tips were the best part of the course as according to her questions on these topics came up in the actual PLAB 2 exam.

According to this academy's website, the GMC pass rate is 64-70% but their pass rate for PLAB 2 is 99 to 100%! 🤔

Doctors will be unemployed this August on a scale never seen before. Fact.

There are enough jobs for all UK trained doctors. Fact.

EVERY country in the world give priority to its isn’t graduates, except the UK. Fact.

Your husband, back in the day, was likely to have been working in a fully staffed hospital. His pay was decent (check his payslips!) the workload was less, less complicated medical conditions, treatment for heart issues often was bed rest. The population was not as elderly nor was there so many population!!!!

And he’ll have got free accommodation as an F1. No student debt of £100,000+. And an NHS that had staff so he was part of a firm who actually trained him, not expected him to just be service provision. I can not believe the wife of a consultant does not know all this ?

And he probably had a wife at home to cook and clean for him and raise the children.

Medical training doesn't work like that in the US.

You do your bachelor's degree (four years), then do the MCAT and apply to med schools. This is the first hurdle. After acceptance, you face four years of classes and rotations and exams, in particular the USMLE 1 and 2, which are major hurdles. What happens next depends on your USMLE results.

High scores will get you into residencies in surgical specialties if that's your ambition. The lowest scores get you into family medicine (GP), pediatrics, psychiatry, and OB/ Gyn residencies.

There are of course numerous specialties in between - emergency, internal, ENT, oncology, urology, neurology, ophthalmology, and many more.

Some of those specialties can lead to fellowships in sub specialties if you wish. Example - ENT to facial plastic surgery.

It takes seven years after med school to become an orthopedic surgeon, two years (iirc) for family medicine. Everything else falls somewhere in between. You do your residency in a hospital or under a hospital umbrella.

But once you've done your residency you are done and can hang up your shingle and be your own boss if you wish.

Here's an interesting article from a couple of years back which gives further insight on how we got here. Note the number graduating from medical school in India which the UK based lobby is advocating for.

100, 000 Indian medical graduates every year but India has no space to train all of them further. The UK based IMG lobby which is central to NHS workforce planning and influential in the BMA thinks that they can be accommodated in the UK's NHS.

Did anyone not think that this was a bad idea, especially given the increasing number of new medical schools opening up here and the training bottleneck? It seems a little India first with no consideration for UK doctors.

The changes in the immigration system in 2021 made the process much easier.

www.moneycontrol.com/news/immigration/uk-immigration-route-for-indian-doctors-how-to-work-in-nhs-without-taking-plab-test-11416291.html

Bringing in dependents is also discussed.

Isn't it simpler and fairer just to align the recruitment system here with all other countries and prioritise UK doctors first?

It’s allllll about money. GMC make a fortune from Plab.

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In case, you can't open the link I have copied and pasted the text so you can read the sales pitch for yourself. This article was in the Indian press a couple of years ago. Word got round. Fast tracking. PLAB exemptions. All available.

"During these two years, qualified professionals from the UK travel to India to provide training and support to these candidates. During the two years while they undergo training, they also have a stable employment in the hospital,” said Prof Singhal.
After the two-year period, the candidate travels to the UK where they undergo further training in an NHS Trust partnered by BAPIO to complete all the milestones. “Even in the UK they are aligned with a hospital where they are paid UK salaries. After two years they get relevant degrees from Royal Colleges UK which are recognized all over the world,” explains Prof Singhal. So after four years of employment and training, candidates end up with a world-class postgraduate qualification and experience of working in the UK.

The other pathway which has been developed by BAPIO is for medical professionals who already have a post-graduate qualification in India and are desirous of gaining UK experience. Such professionals are inducted for a three-month training in India after which they come to the UK and work at registrar grade for at least two years. “Under this scheme the professionals again do not have to give the PLAB test, and get GMC registration upon arrival to the UK. After the lock-in period of two years, they can go back to India or continue to work in the UK if they wish.”

“We have been very mindful of the fact that as medical professionals the candidates must get paid, so our schemes provide for stable employment along with training,” Prof Singhal said.

The case of dependent parents
The paucity of doctors has also occasionally led the UK home office to relent in allowing aged parents of medical professionals to live in the UK. An ophthalmologist working in a hospital in Bolton wanted his 81-year-old father to have the right to stay in the UK especially after his mother passed away, which would have left his father alone in India. The UK home office refused the application citing immigration rules that prohibit such applications and the need to preserve assets of the national health service.
When the case reached the immigration tribunal, the NHS trust employing the ophthalmologist provided letters describing him as “genuinely irreplaceable” and that they would struggle to replace him if he left the job. The NHS trust also said that losing him would “put patients at risk from potentially treatable, sight threatening retinal disorders.” Although the judge concluded that the father did not satisfy the rules, he allowed the appeal on human rights grounds after the home office, too, during the hearing did not oppose the case.
The father thus won the right to stay in the UK, but it is important to note what the judge said in his ruling. “The son has a significant job in the health service that would be hard to replace. The evidence is plain that his medical speciality is undersupplied and he could not be replaced. No doubt arrangements would be made. Advertisements would be placed and work would be shuffled but it is quite plain that there would be significant disruption to important healthcare to a large number of people if the appellant’s son left the country.”
But not every professional desirous of getting their parents to join them in the UK has been successful. The case of the Indian-origin ophthalmologist working in Bolton has been an exception. Organizations like the BAPIO have aligned with other associations to petition the UK government to change visa rules for adult dependent relatives. But while the UK government is desirous of filling empty positions in the NHS and other sectors, it has not shown any inclination to change the rules facilitating the migration of dependent parents.

Someone has to do a nightshift and that is part of being a doctor plenty of professions in critical jobs making critical life decisions not just doctors.

A set of 6 x13 hr nights with time to sleep in between is not special to medicine

you can not separate service provision from training they are integrally tied together and the tax payer is paying for the whole service not just the bits people find fun. There are crap bits in every job - still need to be done.

Forgot to copy this text in case you can't open the link. The article is from 2023.

“Every year around 100,000 candidates qualify for MBBS in India. However, not all get post-graduate opportunities due to paucity of seats. Thus, India has doctors, but not enough training opportunities, while the UK has capacity but less workforce,” said Prof Parag Singhal, consultant endocrinologist, and chair of the BAPIO Training Academy.

Examples where these types of decisions (plural) are the norm every shift?

Extraordinary situations do not count so do not bother with those examples.

@needmoresleep as you work in the House of Lords any idea of anyone to contact?