To think the BMA have misjudged with another doctor's strike? Thread 2

[Locutus2000]

Rolling this over as people still seem to have something to say but no new poll.

Original post

AIBU to think the BMA have misjudged with another doctor's strike?

Last year they got more than anyone else in the NHS along with an improved deal. Nurses and other AHPs received lower rises.

BMA have just announced another 'resident' doctor strike continuing to chase pay restoration to 2008 levels.

Having just had the major win with changes to IMG prioritisation and the clamp-down on PAs it feels a bit tone-deaf and I can't see Streeting going for it.

Very small, very self-selected, and about as useful as Mumsneedwine's polls of her many many doctor friends.

Yes this is the actual fact:
547 Drs who answered a survey said that they had no job
When expressed as a % it looks alarming but quite obviously those without a job will be more likely to reply

As we also found out on the previous thread the majority reason for not getting a training rotation in previous years was that 57% did not actually apply for one which does rather tend to put these figure into some perspective.

And in any case this has nothing at all to do with the strike action which is about paying the ones with a job more. In any other job where there is oversupply of labour wages go down and not up

I know which doctors make mistakes in A/E; and it still beats Obs and Gynae, which has always had a reputation for litigation.

Since this conversation is still going, the link is to an article that puts overconfidence and diagnostic error into perspective. It shows how dangerous it is to tell these people that they are awesome, and for them to tell one another that they are expert clinicians.

I would be profoundly concerned if many of these buffoons were to get jobs as doctors.

Berner and Graber, Overconfidence as a Cause of Diagnostic Error in Medicine https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18440350/ full text on Researchgate.

What % of mistakes are due to arrogance (as you suggest), and what % are due to the hellishly long hours doctors are made to work, the poor work conditions, underfunding and general stress resident doctors are under?

Hellishly long hours? You have no idea how funny that is to people who qualified before shift systems.

Average resident doctor pay vs other professionals. Facts not elitist 💩

I saw a post from a doctor who has returned to work on 50% hours after having a baby. She works 42 hours a week.

Just because it used to be worse, doesn’t mean that it has to stay bad.

Most of these are self employed rates surely?

So a direct comparator would need to be resident drs working privately?

At what career stage?

If you can’t take the heat….

And one of my contemporaries who was an associate at a Magic Circle law firm in the City had her first baby on Friday and was back at work on Monday, full time.

That’s equally disgusting? Just because it’s bad for everyone doesn’t mean it has to be. Crabs in a bucket mentality

Surely all those trades people are self employed and so have to take the risk of setting up their own business with no sick leave or company pension? Maybe they charge large rates to employ assistants or to make up the fact they do not work all the time but on an ad hoc basis? What about travel times for these people?

There are no direct comparisons with female dominated professions e.g. nursing or teaching either.

taking samples of well paid traders who probably have spent a lot of time and risk to build up a one man business is not a fair comparison and yet another mean of junior doctors trying to show 'their worth it'.

also if your comparing yourself against private small business shouldn't you show the rates for private doctors?

A better way to look at it would be to look at how much they’d be earning in other countries. Because at the end of the day, we need to retain talent.

We seem to be able to retain roofers.....they could possibly make more elsewhere.

I think this threat of doctors leaving the country is exaggerated as emigration is a huge step in anyone's lives. Also other countries are obviously going to protect their own workforce. Doesn't scream support for the NHS either.

2.5% of registered doctors leave each year. It doesn’t seem that many, but when you add it up, it’s pretty bad.

In what world is it disgusting?

Why do these threads use such emotional language?

I think it depends on the speciality. I am a consultant psychiatrist and we have a more and more flattened hierarchy. Which is partly why I chose it. It is a speciality which tends not to attracts the big egos, other than possibly in academia ;-) We have nurses and doctors doing equivalent tasks in many cases. Though many nursing staff default to doctors for all things physical as their MH training sadly lacks much physical health care content. On a couple of wards, the approved consultants in charge are trained nurses.

And I have to say, most juniors are delightful. Not talking down to nurses or arrogant or thinking they know it all (as some posters have alluded to). Again maybe that’s a psych thing. Our MDTs are a true team and our nurses today were saying how lucky we have been with our amazing residents who we are losing again in a week.

Not many residents went on strike here. Many don’t support it. I didn’t agree with this strike myself. The BMA no longer represents all of us.

All in would ask is that people don’t far all residents and all doctors with the same brush. Some comments on this thread are a bit unfair.

Well the nurses are proposing strikes so if the government give way on this more public sector workers are going to strike with obvious inflationary pressures. The government will face them down. It's just so can unfair for the patients .

You genuinely don’t understand why it’s disgusting for a woman to be forced back to work 3 days after giving birth?

You should write to the National Careers Service and send them a copy of your screenshot so they can amend their website:

Roofer: £21,000 to £36,000
Tiler: £21,000 to £38,000

Bricklayer: £25,000 to £45,000
Photographer: £17,000 to £45,000
Plumber: £24,000 to £46,000
Hospital doctor: £37,000 to £140,000

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-careers/search-results?SearchTerm=Tiler+%28Wall+tiler%2C...%29

I do also find the use of the magic circle quite hilarious. They’re paid very well for their sacrifices

She wasn’t forced though.

Yes the same website shows PA starting salary of £47,000. You missed that one out.

My thoughts on the strikes as someone who started working in NHS in the late 90’s in various roles including a union rep and management, in a medical role but not a doctor… I don’t recognise the BMA - I’m utterly flabbergasted by their lack of ability to ‘read the room’ and see the bigger picture!!

For years now the rest of the workforce are up-skilling and extending their roles and taking over work that typically was done by a doctor, this was to try and plug the gaps when there shortages etc but in actual fact it’s because if you have hurt your back a physio might be best to see you initially then pass onto a doc or if you need a feeding tube - a dietitian can prescribe and place one and interpret blood tests, monitor as they are the experts in their fields etc etc. Doctors need to be careful what they wish for!

Also, in my opinion, the doctors should be treated the same as other staff, ie Agenda for change etc - I’m sick of them requiring their own pension, their own pay scales! This just fuels their superiority and the ‘we are untouchable’ status. There is a big overlap of medical degree modules and other medical professions and other professions allied to medicine are highly educated and possess many of the skills of other professions. Most require very high grades in science A levels!

Resident doctors need to wake up - they are not special or better and cannot hold the NHS to ransom. They are just greedier and think they deserve more!

Most are young and have likely not been seriously ill themselves- the BMA come across as lacking in insight, awareness and empathy