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.

Is the timing for that ultimatum over?

You are underestimating the grade inflation that occurred between 1988 and 2010. Michael Gove effectively ended it and teachers loathed him for it.

Your BBB offer would be 3 A stars now. I can point you to some of the relevant research if it would be useful to you.

@EasternStandard Yes. The government have withdrawn the offer. They are conscious of polls and this strike isn’t supported by voters. He needs to look strong when others are facing huge issues with living costs. Giving vast sums to the already well paid from taxpayer money is not what he wants to do and the offer is fair. It ends up at 35% over 4 years. Who, in don’t other walk of life, would not be pleased with that? Labour has to stand up to unions and threats or we are even more bankrupt than we are now.

@mumsneedwine

We just had a chuckle at your statement in the quote here that ‘A level maths is not designed for people going on to study at higher level.’ Every maths degree programme in the UK requires A level maths. Well, maybe if you look very, very hard it might be possible that you can find a couple that do not. Please let me know which ones! But all the ones people have heard of do. You know, Oxbridge, Imperial, Warwick, etc etc etc.

The stronger ones require A star at A level and A or A star at FM in addition.

I am genuinely puzzled as to why you think you would know more than a STEM academic who has been an admissions tutor married to a maths professor, both RG, about this?

There is an awful lot of nonsense being spread around here by people who know absolutely nothing about medical education and training, they might think that they are supporting junior doctors but they are doing them no favours.

It is very unkind to give potential applicants to medicine the impression that soft skills, or whatever you want to call them, are more important than academic ability. They may help get you into medical school but medicine eventually becomes academically competitive. There are only 2000 GP and consultant retirals each year, and 10,000 medical graduates enter the system every year, rising to 15,000 in a few years time. Part time working and people leaving for other reasons will make space for some graduates but most of every new crop of doctors will be academically filtered out, and graduates with strong prior academic attainment predominantly progress - as they should:

" It may be that being a good doctor does not require one to know all of the material included in Finals and post-graduate examinations, but it would seem to be a difficult and perverse argument that clinical knowledge is not only irrelevant to medical practice, but also that a lack of such knowledge makes for better clinical practice. Given the careful blueprinting of examinations and their obvious face validity, we suggest that passing examinations such as those discussed here is important for being a good doctor, and those who have difficulty in attaining such clinical knowledge will probably be less good doctors. Knowledge is generally preferable to ignorance, and clinical knowledge underpins clinical practice."

For anyone who is unfamiliar with it, the paper from which the quote is extracted is an interesting read (unfortunately it is evidently beyond the two posters who should read it).

"The Academic Backbone: longitudinal continuities in educational achievement from secondary school and medical school to MRCP(UK) and the specialist register in UK medical students and doctors."

www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/242

Thank you, @Marchesman.

I think the 15:2 ratio will still be no worse, and probably better, than the competition young scientists face for permanent positions in our universities and national labs.

One difference is that during career progression there are many well recognised and respected off ramps, at particular times. Changing pathways is not an easy readjustment, but it is quite doable and many end up satisfied with their choices.

Are there similar natural exits for medical students and trainees?

I will get in there first, @mumsneedwine , and acknowledge that some Maths degree programmes do not require A Level Maths because they admit to Foundation Year, Year 0, in lieu of A levels.

However this has nothing to do with your remark from 9.53 today that A level maths is not designed for those studying maths at degree level. It most certainly is. FM is an additional requirement made by stronger degree programmes.

When I asked you for examples, I was not interested in FYs (which I support) or the Open University (ditto, a special case). You wrote of programmes where the FM requirement replaces the A level requirement. I am unaware of any.

Bizarre. If a school doesn't offer FM it isn't needed, but this is v v few schools. You said you were at a top Uni so I assumed they also needed the extra exams to get in, as well as FM.

Maths A level is designed to be taken by students who may not want to do maths degrees, but be an exam available to all good mathematicians.

Nit sure why you're still so hung up on maths ? Come teach it if you like as no one has enough teachers.

But no comment on your own factual mistakes, so confidently stated?

No they didn't. And no it wouldn't.

Like what ??? You are fixated so I'll play along to make you happy. Give me quotes and I'll give you facts. As an actual teacher.

You still don't seem to have taken this up with the GMC. Why ??

Exactly.

For goodness sake, the GMC know. They also know they need a lot of workers at the lowest level to fill rotas, and they know that most will be lost along the way as selection becomes competitive. It has always happened to a degree, but the wastage has grown because of the increase in student numbers with no increase in consultant numbers. The most academic and therefore the most able will still end up with the consultant jobs.

The thing which more people ought to know is that having a medical degree is by no means a guarantee of training, or of a consultant post. And as so many aspiring doctors seem not to know this, or seemingly that they will have to work nights and weekends, there perhaps ought to be pre admission courses for them explaining the realities.

For goodness sake, surely the GMC would not advocate for sub standard doctors.

And they know it will be hard work, long hours and they'll never be as wealthy as their cohort in finance or law. But they did not expect to have 25 people applying for each job, not have any other jobs to apply for when don't get into training, and work in an NHS that had been decimated for 10 years. No one is complaining about working long days or nights. They are complaining about being understaffed and being forced to work in leaky buildings with nowhere to get a cup of coffee at 2am.

My d (F1) is also working 3 night shifts this weekend, in central London, on a new rotation as she moved a week ago.

She's still pondering on the strike, in her words 'I'm not that arsed about the money, it's the accessibility of jobs going forward and other work related issues, it's really bad that the BMA and the publicity machine are focussing on pay alone when to many of us the pay is a side issue'...

These threads always end up just as mudslinging. Whatever people think about grade equivalence or training/trainee quality between now and 20/30 years ago, the young people that apply and accepted have generally always been high academic achievers who make the choice to study medicine for vocational reasons in the knowledge that they could earn more money, often more easily elsewhere. The role has changed because the system and culture have changed because society has changed. Comparing doctors or their role between now and then is pretty meaningless.

All v v true. And so sad that there are apparently consultants who don't appreciate this.
Good luck to everyone working this weekend. Hope they get a coffee, lunch by 5pm and the chance to have a wee at least once per shift 😊

She's just peeved because the rest of the family are together (well, in between my own night shifts...) and she's in London alone, having sent her fiancé to his parents so he's got company and she can sleep!

@mumsneedwine Your post of 9.53 today says in part

A level maths is not designed for people going on to study at higher level.’

I have informed you of this before and quoted the post above. If you’re having trouble finding it, let me know if you would like me to post the screen shot.

I have informed you above that A level maths most certainly is. The facts that

(1) the strongest maths degree programmes have other requirements in addition to Maths A level and (2) other degree programmes require Maths A level

are not relevant to this statement.

@HostessTrolley Where “more easily” and doing what? They don’t have FM as we have established and you make the huge mistake of thinking other well paid jobs are easy to get. The fact remains that a doctors job is easier to get.

Remember doctors are stem grads. They haven’t done law where there are 30,000 grads every year and just a fraction get well paid training jobs. Far more difficult to access than a medical training position. Then there’s finance. How many actually get these better paid jobs? Not many and fierce competition. Applicants have done a myriad of degrees and not just one that’s, in effect, a closed shop. It’s simply not the case that all these young doctors would be earning more elsewhere. If it’s that easy, why don’t they?

Let’s be honest, grads are queuing up for medical degrees because of status and career, amazing pensions and part time opportunities. Other careers are nowhere near as flexible. Pay packages take lots of things into account and job security is another issue to be factored in. Dc actively chose to be doctors and many others wanted it too and are probably academically sound too. So what better paid jobs are they doing? And if money was the ultimate driver , why are the degrees so competitive? They are competitive for all the reasons above and stem grads are not paid more in other fields. Medical degrees give the best fiscal return of any degree. If they want a go at Magic Circle, apply. Nothing stopping them. They might actually have to meet work targets and do what they are employed to do and worry about the 20% of trainees that are let go as not good enough.

Well her fiancée is a year younger, did a 3 year degree, and is earning well over double what she is. She has slightly better A level grades.

She wanted to be a doctor since she was about 8 years old, because she liked science and helping people. I don't think an 8 year old gives a bugger about status, pensions, or part time

You wrote that "The young people that apply and accepted have generally always been high academic achievers who make the choice to study medicine for vocational reasons in the knowledge that they could earn more money, often more easily elsewhere". Mumsneedwine responded in classic form "All v v true. And so sad that there are apparently consultants who don't appreciate this."

Now you offer anecdotal evidence for what was a series of generalisations. But if you look for empirical evidence it is clear that you (both) were wrong.

Firstly standard entry medical degrees now have a minimum requirement of AAB. When you include courses with a foundation year this can be as low as BBC. Secondly, the Big Four accountancy firms have graduate acceptance rates of 2.5 - 2.9%, and the acceptance rate for law firms is 2%; the former pay £28k in the regions, and The Law Society recommends that trainee lawyer salaries should start at £24k. The acceptance rate for medical graduates is 100% - on a salary of £45k in the regions.

Do you think that telling junior doctors that they are academic high achievers, who can earn more money, more easily elsewhere is helpful in any way? Will it improve their job satisfaction or make it worse. Make them more or less likely to strike? Increase or decrease their confusion when they don't get what they have been led to believe they are worth?

Well gosh. There's a surprise.

There are obvious off ramps if you do a traditional medical degree with three preclinical years. This is one of the attractions, because you get broad exposure to half a dozen scientific disciplines. However, graduates of these degrees are least likely to need an off ramp, although these are the courses that provide medical scientists - if they haven't filtered out such people with obtuse admission criteria.

There isn't an obvious exit for PBL graduates. But I would not be surprised to see, as undergraduate numbers expand, medical graduates going into PA jobs, in the same way that law graduates become paralegals. After all, we keep hearing that they are better paid than doctors, and that they have better working conditions. They certainly get better paid than paralegals.