To think that not all doctors are badly paid - junior ones, yes, but not all?

[MyAmusedOpalCrab]

It’s often said that doctors in the NHS are underpaid but is that really true across the board? Junior doctors, yes, absolutely. But consultants, GPs and some specialists earn six figures. AIBU to think that while the pay structure may be flawed, it’s not accurate to say all doctors are struggling financially?

Hospitals at night have skeleton staff covering emergencies for the whole hospital e.g. for medicine there will be 1 very junior doctor and 1 x registrar for the whole hospital including seeing medical patients in the emergency department and sometimes even on ITU (similar for surgeons/gynae/orthopaedics).

How lovely it would be to cover a single ward at night! Med reg is the most horrific job in the entire hospital. They deserve every penny.

They earn FAR more in the USA.

They also have HUGE student debt. 4 years undergrad then 4 years med school.

many jobs are more highly paid in the us. My own field is. Mainly because if you need a post grad qualification you need to compensate for the student debt. We don’t have it to that extent here, and you don’t pay it back until you are earning more. US loans you pay back whatever your salary is.

The reality is they seem generally happier with a much better standard of living & far better quality of life, despite the accuracy of what you state above.

Doctors now earn about 25% less in real terms than they did in 2008, because of years of subinflation or zero pay rises

They are not asking for a pay increase, they are asking for their pay to be restored to previous levels

They are only looking at strike action because the government promised to make serious efforts to restore pay over the next 10 years. They have reneged on this at the first opportunity

Hardly surprising they're pissed off really, who would quietly accept a 25% pay cut and ignore broken promises of restoration??!

On top of this they have lost their final salary pension scheme, face yearly tax bills on the pension they have left, have around £100k of student debt on qualifying, and face increasingly shitty working conditions.

I'm amazed anyone wants to be a doctor nowadays. The pay situation is just the most visible point of dissatisfaction

We’re not called Junior Doctors anymore, we’re called Resident Doctors. This change was brought about to better represent the expertise and responsibilities of fully qualified doctors as “junior doctor” was technically applicable up until consultant level. I’m not even getting into it on this thread as I’m beyond over arguing with the British public about my career and the pitfalls that come with it - but if you’re going to comment on our career and pay, can you at least address us correctly? Thank youuuuuu!

THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!!!! ♥️

Whilst junior doctors have take the brunt of this, have teachers salaries kept up with inflation since 2008? No. Dropped by at least 10%. Do you know why that is? Because you work for the state and the state took a hammering in the financial crisis. If your employer is skint they can’t give you a pay rise. My employer was skint then too. I didn’t have a pay rise for at least 5 years. Absolutely nothing. Zero. Nada. But guess what, with people being made redundant all around me I was grateful to have a job. As were teachers in Ireland who voluntarily took a 20% pay cut at the time as they recognised their employer (the state) was skint and they couldn’t afford a pay rise.

I find the endless bleating about 2008 tiresome. Get over it.

Your solicitor and your accountant will have a reasonable number of clients that they can accommodate within their set working hours. When your solicitors case load is full, they will not accept anymore. Do you honestly think it’s the same for doctors in a hospital setting? Medicine is incomparable career; so these comparisons are utterly pointless.

I would respond to your reasoned argument but unfortunately, you’ve chosen to end your comment with “get over it”. Rudeness gets no acknowledgement from me so, enjoy your evening.

It takes about 10 years post degree to get to consultant. Anyone earning over £100k get hammered for tax so no I don't think consultant are well paid. Incredibly difficult to recruit in some specialities too.

Do you really think that? I think you need a chat with some associates at firms like Eversheds and Allen & Overy.

Whilst NHS Dr's can't close their caseloads, matters are dealt with by extending waiting lists: for knee replacements, cataracts, etc. I wouldn’t want to wait two years for surgery. People have to. Nobody waits for two years to see their solicitor or accountant.

The only difference is that the NHS is free at the point of delivery.

The salary quoted above is for a full time job. If they are working elsewhere, eg teaching or private, they'll reduce their NHS funded hours.

I get paid six figures. No one will ever die if I make a mistake at work. Yes they’re underpaid, even consultants.

I did chuckle at the idea that a client might come to my Big4 team, and that we’d say we were at maximum case load and we couldn’t advise them…

But I still have a better deal at work then a doctor, I wouldn’t swap for what’s an equivalent salary (albeit much bigger pension…)

Its always interesting to see what the psychological "6 figure" salary truly represents to people. Doctors earn 6 figures, they must be paid incredibly well...!

100k salary today is the same as a 65k salary was in 2010. Yet now when you earn 100k, you start paying over 60% tax on anything above that for quite some time.

I've got a group of friends who were all lucky enough to go to the same excellent grammar school. The lowest paid of them are now the two consultant doctors. They were the hardest working, most academically successful of the group at school. Its no longer an aspirational profession.

Actually, I don't think they are paid enough relatively. However, to be paid more, and that includes nurses and allied staff, I think the services need to improve dramatically. Interactions with patients need to be more mutually respectful and communication needs to improve tenfold.

I earn as much as a consultant and quite often say when the CEO has a whinge up, "let's get it into perspective, nobody died". However, if I had a track record of being rude to internal or external stakeholders, being late for meetings, causing stakeholders inconvenience, etc., I would lose my job. That's without any negligent practices in the mix.

The world and expectations have moved on since the late 1940s but regrettably the NHS and its machinery has not. It needs to keep up. If it sends me a snotty, rude letter instructing me not to be late and telling me that a missed appointment costs the NHS £65, it doesn't make me think "gosh, how awful". It makes me think gosh, that's a sentiment that works both ways and I trust you aren't going to cancel my appointment at short notice or keep me waiting for 90 minutes without explanation or apology. The optics are just shocking.

There is much emphasis on the general public wasting public money. There needs to be significantly more on the extent to which patient time is wasted with a knock on effect on GDP and employers.

“Set working hours…..reasonable number of clients…”

What are they for solicitors and accountants in London at least?

DS works for a medium sized firm. He works seventy hours a week normally and up to one hundred a week, when he’s busy. He worked away in a hotel in a different part of the UK, every week during his training - when he might have had to work 9 am to 2 am, including weekends.

We were at his house for DGS birthday. He had worked until 5 am, then got up again at 9 am. He asked his partner if he could spend 10 minutes watching DGS open his presents and she said no. The firm would send him a birthday present. DS worked until 1 am the next morning. That’s how it is on big jobs with strict deadlines, which can go on for several weeks.

That is the figure produced by the BMA, who as a union have stretched the figure regularly although I note they seem to have abandoned the previous wild claims of 35-40% pay “cut”. Data was never the BMA leadership strength.

Pretty much every sector has seen stagnant pay (effective pay cuts) since 2008. Most sectors have also faced significant redundancies and indirect cuts such as reduced promotional and career opportunities (in the private sector at least - that wasn’t the case across all of the public sector - some parts used extra promos were used to retain the facade of a pay freeze). They have also had to address major workplace change and restructuring, retraining and relocations.

Doctors have not “lost their final salary pension scheme”. They still have a DBP, its just slightly less platinum plated than it used to be. Have you forgotten the chancellor actually changed tax law on pensions specifically to benefit doctors due to the huge value of their pension pots? Even amongst public sector pension schemes the doctors’ scheme is very generous.

Every professional spends many, many hours over standard at work, takes professional qualifications, is constantly uprating training etc - usually at their own expense. Everyone has seen the impact of the last 17 years on pay.

Doctors should be well rewarded for an important and demanding job. However most of the young juniors/residents in my family/circles talk more about conditions than pay. They talk about managing placements in the early years if they don’t have the connections to stay in preferred locations, nepotism, some of the staffing levels and poor operational management (especially if they have worked abroad in better structured systems).

Lets face it - given a blank sheet nobody would design the mess we have at the moment but in a messy system doctors are far from the worst done by. I would like to see some of the logistical and practical problems early career doctors face being addressed rather than blanket pay rises with no connection to productivity.

Yes I find this constant claim that doctors alone cannot clock off at 5pm precisely to be one of the silliest repeated claims on these threads. Every professional does long hours, spends years training and qualifying and accepts significant compromises in life to achieve promotions/career progression.

There are legitimate grievances which should be addressed but this insistence that nobody else works as hard simply undermines the legitimate cases.

Absolutely.
Let me give you an example. When I went into labour with DS2 at 27 weeks, many years ago now (Hypoplastic left heart syndrome - he died), DH was in court. His clerk waited outside to bundle him into a cab - he got into it at 4.30pm. He arrived just before DS2 died. The judge adjourned the case the following day but DH had to be back in court on the Monday.

Those who work in the NHS have zero cognizance of the pressures their patients and those in other careers might face. If I am kept waiting 90 minutes for a 10.30 appointment, that takes out my entire morning and that work has to be done still. Other professions are not as linear.

Your solicitor and your accountant will have a reasonable number of clients that they can accommodate within their set working hours. When your solicitors case load is full, they will not accept anymore. Do you honestly think it’s the same for doctors in a hospital setting? Medicine is incomparable career; so these comparisons are utterly pointless.

Exactly. And if the solicitor's clients are rude, obnoxious or violent, they'll just refuse to take them on as a client. Doctors still have to see them

I’m so sorry for your loss. That must have been terrible. I’m so sorry.

So who do you think acts for the rude violent and obnoxious clients? I’ve had to take instructions sitting across a desk from a defendant on a 6- man lockdown. That means he required 6 officers with him/restraining him every time he was out of his cell. He’d murdered multiple people (hence in prison) but the offence I was dealing with was that he had ripped open a prison guards throat with a biro casing. Needless to say I was taking notes with a biro. I thought about using a pencil but figured if he really wanted to go for me a pencil could probably do the job too.
solicitors deal with the rude violent dangerous and mentally ill every single day. This idea that doctors are the only professionals working long hours with difficult people is just ignorant.

Sorry that last message was to @AndSoFinally