Resident doctors synicsl strike again

[uneffingbelievable]

The resident doctors have once again announced a 6 day strike to co incide with a bank holiday weekend.

Whilst I support fair pay and working conditions I have lost all sympathy with them. This is not poverty when you are being paid as a whole package 40-95000 gross on a 44 hr week depending on your seniority.

The arguments about lack of jobs did not stack up with more jobs going to home graduates than IMGS despite the hysteria and a huge number of home graduates not even bothering to apply.

They are coming across as tone deaf and entitled or am I missing something.

Not once has anyone said trust jobs are inferior. They provide less training and progression, but no one has said they are worth less. There are however less of them these days.

And not everyone can just move abroad. Visas are expensive.

Please provide the quotes where I have 'implied' trust grade jobs are inferior ? Total lie. These days all doctors want is a job - any job.

Why do they have training programmes then if Trust grades have equal training opportunities to trainees?

Are you telling us that a trust grade would get as much theatre time as a surgical trainee on a 6 year higher surgical training programme paid for by a deanery?

The GMC survey feedback would end up with deanery pulling their trainees out.

Trust grade contracts are usually 6 months to a year. Training programmes far longer.

The days of working towards consultancy via Trust grade jobs finished when training programmes were introduced.

Comedy gold that you call me a denigrator of trust grade jobs for saying trust grades do not have the same training opportunities as specialty trainees (they don't) when you described your trust grade jobs as "dirty low class non training jobs". Unbelievable lack of self-awareness.

There are still some in the NHS who can't see the changes that have happened. They think their experience is that of today's doctors.

There are 400+ applicants for every trust grade job, most close the same day they are posted. Lots of doctors would love one and they'd just like to be employed as a doctor. We train them (no idea where those huge sums come from !) but then don't want to employ them.

It used to be you'd be guarantee to get a GP job, not any more. Currently there are unemployed qualified GPs.

This country doesn't seem to want doctors any more, just an NHS staffed by PAs, ANPs,AHPs, all working at ST7 levels. You either need medical school, rotations etc. Or you don't. Wes needs to make up his mind.

But @uneffingbelievable thinks it is ok to describe trust grade jobs as "dirty low class non training jobs" while accusing me of denigrating trust grade jobs because I state they have less training opportunities which is true.

Very very strange.

I know thread has moved on… but to remove employment is illogical, because the power of strikes are in their ability to bring about improvement in pay and conditions. If employment could be withdrawn (workers fired) then strikes would have no impact. Workers are unpaid during strikes.

Think people forget that. Doctors feel so strongly they are prepared to go unpaid. Which for many is a massive hardship.

Or it could be that Oxford is so difficult to get in to (UCAT of 3092, compulsory chemistry A level, and the mean number of A stars at GCSE for successful candidates is 10.3) that fewer people apply because they know they don't stand a chance.

Keele on the other hand probably has a long queue because they only want 1700 for UCAT, either Biology of Chemistry at A level, and 5 GCSE's at grade 7. Hardly taxing.

a) Oxford and Cambridge are the most selective.

b) Things have improved, greatly; but believe it or not the NHS is not run for the convenience of doctors.

c) mumsneedwine 29/03/2026 16:24: "I'm glad too, they are awesome humans. F1 take home when this dispute started was £1,725 a month."
(My bold font; and your words).

Also, until 1987 A level grades were norm referenced, with a cap on A grades awarded around 10%, and an overall pass rate under 70%.

In 1987 there was a change to criteria marked referencing. Ever since, the percentage of top grades has been steadily increasing. Last year the percentage of A and A star grades awarded at A level was 28.3% and the pass rate was essentially 100%.

With norm referenced grades, students in any degree programme could be taught according to the entrance requirements and staff would have a pretty good understanding of their cohorts’ abilities. Nowadays student abilities and working backgrounds (I do speak just of medical students) are more diverse.

I think part of the appeal of PBL, which I regard as a cop out until UG training is well advanced, is that students are not ready to begin university study at the same level as 40+ years ago, UG curricula cannot afford to go backwards, and no one is prepared to work students harder or longer. So a new approacher finessing all of this was a very appealing ‘solution’, and not just in medicine.

I do think a PBL approach in one or more capstone modules can be valuable. Also, if admissions criteria are sufficiently robust, contextual admissions can work very well. Studies internal to my School agree with published outcomes: pupils who can achieve nearly as well as their peers whilst managing significant personal challenges (not all of which are grounds for COs) have equal outcomes to them at university.

Edit: I do not speak just of medical students

You really want to be treated by someone on their 43rd hour?? Honestly that's madness.

FYI everyone:

There is an active thread on the HE Board called ‘Medicine or Finance?’

One thoughtful contributor has a DC caught out by the lack of training posts, which is where it does seem we need to inject some rational reform into the system.

Otherwise, the consensus is that the Test of Mathematics for University Admissions is much more challenging than the MCAT and admission to a strong Maths programme, particularly with a Fin Maths specialism, is much more competitive than admission to Medical School.

(However it should be noted that only a relatively few Schools of Mathematics require TMUA)

The advice to the OP is that only DC with a very strong sense of vocation, realism about what they’re getting into and stamina should think about Medical School.

@poetryandwine So it’s even more bizarre the BMA won’t accept the deal on the table (or was) and keep the training positions offered. They seem to represent some interests but not others.

It’s also inevitable that vast numbers on maths and finance degrees won’t get highly paid jobs . That’s a big lottery and not just open to those degrees. Lots of degree holders can apply. Unlike doctors wanting training.

Why do they have training programmes then if Trust grades have equal training opportunities to trainees?

• because to make ewtd compliant rotas more doctors were employedd and some doctors realised they needed more experience or they get to work with dr A who is brilliant at x,y,z

Are you telling us that a trust grade would get as much theatre time as a surgical trainee on a 6 year higher surgical training programme paid for by a deanery?

• Yes I am and see it every day - otherwise how to people get CESR

The GMC survey feedback would end up with deanery pulling their trainees out.

• no it would not, you get time to improve and the GMC survey includes trust grades, lot more than treating all doctors equitabley and fairly and trianing them shuts posts down

Trust grade contracts are usually 6 months to a year. Training programmes far longer.

• and your point is what? So you apply for another in an area you need to to make the curriculum. Harder route agreed than a cushy rotation but still doable.

The days of working towards consultancy via Trust grade jobs finished when training programmes were introduced.

• no it did not - your ignorance of how people become consultants is breathtaking. CESR .....!

Comedy gold that you call me a denigrator of trust grade jobs for saying trust grades do not have the same training opportunities as specialty trainees (they don't) when you described your trust grade jobs as "dirty low class non training jobs". Unbelievable lack of self-awareness.

• no - said I worked in jobs trust grade jobs that you and mums consider lower class and non training. One of the best jobs I did was a trust grade job - I learned so much and still remember those lessons today - and that was by a consultant and his team none of whom had gone through a training programme - thank you Khalid! I do nto consider any trust grade job inferior but purple you have repeatedly said your son was not progressing his career to become a consultant because he was in one of these jobs which would not teach him. Your words not mine.

Asked our trust grades today if they thought their jobs were inferior and they go no training - all of them said they were treated fairly and had the same opportunities but they all commented that the numbered trainees looked down on them and thought they were there to do the dirty service bits - but they ahd never had thsat from a consultant!

Sorry real life experience to draw on - would say mine was current as of 3 hrs ago

Lets be - on my 43rd hour of 44 in a week - yes what is wrong with that.

My DD did 72 hours last week. And has a day off. Then 5 night shifts. Day off and 4 more long days. She's tired

CESR route is rarely used as a pathway to consultancy now doctors have specalty training pathways. You are using examples from the 80s/90s.

Specialty trainees take priority over Trust grades for learning opportunities.Trust grades are mostly for service provision and have less learning opportunities. That is not looking down on them just fact.

Have you not seen a deanery pull trainees out due to lack of training opportunities in the decades of experience you say you have?

Of course the Trust grades are going to say what you want if you are a consultant.

Did you tell the Trust grades how you had described Trust grade jobs you did?

Let me refresh your memory "dirty low class non training " jobs. I bet they would be impressed with that!

So who was most insulting to Trust grades?

Me who stated the facts that they are mostly for service provision and have less training opportunities than doctors on specialty training programmes?

Or you that described their jobs as "dirty low class non training" jobs?

You are not the only one with real life experience. From your posts I suspect you trained in the 80s or 90s as you are very out of touch.

I’ve had the misfortune of spending a lot of time in hospital with one of my DS over the past 2 years due to a serious and complex condition, involving multiple specialties and consultants.

He has been a regular in-patient in a major London teaching hospital. My experience is entirely anecdotal over that time but seemed to resonate with other parents I met.
Overall, he receives wonderful care from a brilliant group of all sorts of medical professionals, but it’s consultants that run the show. And they are a very mixed bag.

One consultant (trained at a “selective” medical school, and with a similarly impressive CV to one quoted earlier) scolded my very ill child for having the temerity to be crying when she deigned to come and see him. And it was downhill from there, with her very dismissive attitude and refusing to listen which ended in a complaint which went absolutely nowhere. She added nothing to my son’s diagnosis or treatment (if anything it went backwards after her involvement) but she’s still responsible for training doctors? Shocking.

Different consultant, who is relatively new in post, is amazing and succeeded in getting my son’s treatment back on track. He’s clever and kind and empathetic and was also trained at a “selective” medical school. So not convinced that’s the difference here. And it was a junior working for him that spotted an anomaly in DS’s tests that opened up a whole area of investigation that hadn’t been picked up on, despite 3 previous in-patient stays and multiple outpatient appointments with 8 different specialty consultants, all over the course of 6 months. She was not trained at a “selective” medical school but she is smart, curious and listened to us. And from what I see, she is getting proper training from an excellent consultant, who clearly values that.

As a patient/mother of a patient, I worry about how patchy the quality of training is for resident doctors when a single, well-respected London hospital can deliver such polarising experiences. And they do work very long hours - we have got to know quite a few of them well as they always seem to be at the hospital. But they do come across as professionally fulfilled (apart from the poor sods working for the shitty consultants - they’re miserable)

CESR route is rarely used as a pathway to consultancy now doctors have specalty training pathways. You are using examples from the 80s/90s.

• Sorry we have 4 doctors doing CESR at the moment as in 2026, had 3 achieve it last year.

Specialty trainees take priority over Trust grades for learning opportunities.Trust grades are mostly for service provision and have less learning opportunities. That is not looking down on them just fact.

• sorry real time experience with the same GWS and same rotas wth same access to clinics ward rounds etc - current as of today.

Have you not seen a deanery pull trainees out due to lack of training opportunities in the decades of experience you say you have?

• I have not got decades of experience and have never claimed that more hyperbole and fantasy from you. I have seen jobs be threatened due to poor timetables - corrected and posts kept.

Of course the Trust grades are going to say what you want if you are a consultant.

• right so now I am bullying them. As we do anonymous MSFs on their experience as with the numbered trainees and they say the same and have done for the past 3 yrs I would say no bullying. Thye are happy to come and tell us when people are behaving in an unacceptable manner -sign of a good department that the residents feel they can be heard and listened to.

Did you tell the Trust grades how you had described Trust grade jobs you did?

• I asked them if they thought their jobs were of a lower class and they got no training from them. The response was no we get the same as everyone else just some of the numbered trainees think we are here to do the dirty work.

So who was most insulting to Trust grades?
purple you have insulted trust grade jobs so often and with no real understanding of the process.

Me who stated the facts that they are mostly for service provision and have less training opportunities than doctors on specialty training programmes?

• you stated an ill informed untruth with no experince of what youa re talking about.

Or you that described their jobs as "dirty low class non training" jobs?

• read what I wrote and I said the dirty low class non training jobs which is the impression you have given over numerous threads that they are ebneath proper trainees .

You are not the only one with real life experience. From your posts I suspect you trained in the 80s or 90s as you are very out of touch.

_No i was in primary school in the late 80s 
In the 90s in secondary school
I paid fees and do not have decades of experience.

You become more offensive by the post on a subject you clearly have little knowledge of or how residents training or non training are treated. If you are truly a doctor as you infer and that is how you treat trust grades in your department then I am sad for any resident that has to endure that style of behaviour. It is not one I ever experienced or allow to occur as a resident doctor lead for my department.

Having been voted trainer of the year twice and nominated three times in 5 yrs - I would say the proof is in the voting!

The data show that Maths and Finance (and related) graduates tend to get excellent jobs.

Comparing the career trajectory to a medical career is comparing apples to oranges. We aren’t just talking IB where the popular imagination tends to go.

In the early 2000s, while university STEM departments were busily setting up remedial teaching in response to the declining standard of A-level maths and science teaching, medical schools were doing the opposite by going down the PBL route. This suited everyone, and not only students with their NSS evaluations, because an expansion of medical schools teaching the traditional preclinical sciences would have been all but impossible. 20 years later, the first proper review of the consequences of PBL was published, which I cited early, and the findings were as one might have expected.

One predictable consequence is that PBL graduates are more likely to go into General Practice (and perform worse in the speciality's examination). But at the same time we have also been very carefully admitting applicants to medical schools according to non-academic criteria (justified by DEI - a point that I have previously made).

So, we have had a low standard at A-level for maths and sciences, a low bar and a preference for non-scientists at the point of entry, an almost complete absence of anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and bacteriology teaching in medical schools, and an output that gravitates towards general practice.

How, you might ask, is the recruitment of medically trained clinical researchers and clinical pathologists going?

Not at all well, apparently.

Honestly read your posts back. A lot of statements and accusations. .

All the information you have given about your career gives the impression you were training in 80s/90s when there were no specialty training programmes. My comments about CESR route is in relation to UK medical graduates and accurate.

I notice that you dodge any questions about your inappropriate comment about trust grade jobs being "dirty low class non training" jobs.

How is AAA a 'low bar' ? Majority of med students have at least 1 A star. And many have A level maths (which is now v v hard). It's such a shame that there are consultants who do not value their students.

Completely agree. Unbelievable the intellectual snobbery on this thread from "consultants".