To think the junior / resident doctors are greedy, selfish, entitled & lazy?

[SpottyAlpaca]

So the resident doctors are out on strike. Yet again. Patients are being inconvenienced & treatments delayed. Yet again.

They have received a pay rise of 28.9% over that last 3 years, which is by far the highest increase of any group in the public sector. Very few people in the private sector, who ultimately pay the doctors’ salaries, have received anything like as much. Very few of their patients will ever earn as much as a resident doctor. Yet still it’s not enough and they are demanding even more.

Doctors do an important job and deserve to be paid properly for it. But the BMA’s current approach is completely unreasonable and deluded. They talk about “pay restoration’ to 2008 levels but that’s completely unrealistic. The country is poorer now & simply can’t afford it. AIBU to think they should get back to work?

Thanks for writing this so I don’t feel I have to!

I’m a consultant now (10 years now) and feel very happy with my pay and conditions. Full time NHS. About 140k. Training was hard at times but I chose my specialty to enable me to raise my family and allow flexibility. I never got any free taxis or accommodation which one PP thinks is standard. I worked hard, but of course I had time for food and a wee during a shift. Apparently we are the only NHS professional to have paid breaks. Though probably the only ones not to consistently take them and be very boundaried about it.

I think we all have a tendency to consider things were ‘harder in our day’, especially medics. But it clearly it was! Across totallly different industries my friends (in our 40s) see a different attitude amongst the current 20 somethings. Entitled. Work shy. Fragile. I supervise some fantastic trainees but there are also plenty of mediocre ones now that we didn’t see before even though I’m with a competitive programme. And that relates to attitude not ability.

Sounds like there are plenty of resident doctors who are not supporting the BMA now so that’s positive. They’ve become an awful organisation. And shaming the profession.

Oh and these basic pay figures quoted are for jobs where there is no real responsibility, no night shifts, no real saving lifes. It’s doing GP jobs or maybe psychiatry. Of course these are crucial jobs and can be life-saving, but as a trainee this is really not your role.

There is always time to go to the loo. Please advise your child to look after themselves first as per GMC guidance. Honestly this nonsense line is trotted out so often it does my head in.

Hyperbole does not help the argument. It’s a miracle I’m still alive given the lack of opportunity to sip water.

Calling it “defence” doesn’t make it neutral. It’s still a choice about priorities. No one’s against soldiers having proper equipment.

But conflicts are driven by human decisions, not inevitabilities. Military spending isn’t the only way to create safety.

Real security is also healthcare, stability, and functioning services. If billions can be found quickly for defence, it’s fair to ask why that urgency isn’t there elsewhere.

They are tone deaf and out of touch.

Whether they work hard or not is really irrelevant tbh.

Lucy Letby????

If they’ve got it so good, go be a doctor yourself. No? Thought not!

No I don’t think that and you’re an absolute idiot if you think they are. Maybe if you think like that OP you should go private and reduce the waiting list for other people, you won’t be missed.

Well said @Dexternight

Yes, agree, not a doctor but remember the conditions in the 90’s. As a manager now I see lots of great people at the start of their careers but they are more fragile, more grabby and less respectful of experience. It can be difficult, no one in my team is under 30. Not through my choice, they don’t want the tougher side of healthcare.

Well done you....

No student debt, a few years at least of final salary pension , probably got on the housing ladder before it all went to shit after living in free hospital accomodation for the first year...

Different world to now. I think it was easier back in our bday. I got at least 4-6 hours sleep on a night shift - so those 90 hour weeks, I spent 30-40 hours sleeping.or in the mess playing pool or on the playstation.

A "doctor in training" covers anyone in a training programme right up until they become a consultant, it's not just FY years, so you are incorrect to describe just FY years as the only training salaries

They'll settle abroad and who pays off their £120k student loan? The taxpayer. Who has to pay for the locum shifts at 4X pay? The taxpayer.

Don't give them a real terms pay rise so they pay less of said loan in the UK? Taxpayer funds the additional write off at 30 years.

Just pay people what they deserve, it's always the cheapest route.

We shouldn't be bringing people down, only campaigning for better pay for everyone.

I have a relative who is a GP with a speciality in Acute medicine. He works days & often does 10 hour shifts out of hours as an extra while also visiting patients at home many who after consideration require an ambulance. Incidentally he carries life saving equipment too.His job is to save lives & he does.

Sick of the striking doctors. They get paid more than enough when qualified and have incentives like golden handshakes and relocation packages. Good pensions too. They are bloody greedy and selfish. Everyone has to tough it out when they are studying / training. That’s life! They’re in a better position than most but it’s still not enough.
They conveniently strike when the weather improves and there’s a bank holiday. Ahh well they can enjoy their ‘strike a day off’ from the work calendar. Never mind the fact that there’s sick, dying people in the hospitals. Never mind the fact that there’s UNPAID carers out there looking after poorly people. Shame on the junior/resident doctors! Their ‘poor me’ attitude and demands for more money is wearing thin. They either need to get on and do their job or find a different career.

They've lost all my support.

Plenty of doctors buying lunch in every hospital I've been to...
People quoting the hourly pay - suggest to the doctors they work in a warehouse for £14 an hour instead. I'm sure they'd jump at the chance.... That's right, they KNOW they are privileged to be able to study hard to have an interesting and rewarding job and most can't imagine being interested in anything else. Or they'd have become corporate lawyers instead.

@ActuallyADoctor I am not sure if you're saying F1 and F2 doctors don't do night shifts or that the pay examples are only drawn from psychiatry and GP?

I don't agree with the strikes but neither do most of the resident doctors. The strike wasn't put to a ballot before it went ahead.

What happens if the doctors just ignore the BMA and go to work?

As pp say, they study a heck of a long time and work hard. So yes they deserve a payrise. I couldn’t do their job.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner Are you suggesting that there are junior doctors who were doing that job in 2008 that are still doing it 18 years later?

My neice is a first year resident doctor. Her hourly rate was higher in the part time job she did while at uni.
This weekend she has worked 5 consecutive 12 hour shifts on an admissions ward. I thought there were rules about how many hours a week they could work but she has no say in the matter. Just as she had no say in where she was posted for her first and second year and will have no job at the end of the second year.

It's true they knew the pay when they started training 6 years ago. In fact the road to medicine starts much sooner than uni, it's so difficult to get in that they have to be thinking about it years before. What has changed for the worse is the training that follows on from the first couple of years.
Older consultants will have moved seamlessly from being second years into specialist training. That doesn't happen now and has become dramatically worse since 2020. This is one of the big reasons so many leave to go abroad, not just the pay and conditions. I know four young people who became doctors in 2022. Two have gone abroad, one gave it up and went into med tech and the fourth is still striving to get a training post.

Those who think it should be illegal for doctors to strike, what would you do if they all just walked away from an increasingly unvalued job? The way nurses and teachers already have?

You think they ought to be your slaves. What do you think they owe you? They pay for their own training now.

This. I am always talking to my doctor DC about switching over to big Pharma or management consultancy. So far deaf ears but I am still hopeful. They could easily earn double and not have too deal with the kind of bitterness exemplified on this thread. They would work hard but with less stress and more life balance. I work in a senior level in one of these sectors. Not without stress but never of the life or death variety.