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?

The dedication to the strike seems to be poor - no one on the picket lines since Tuesday then only there for 3 hrs and increasing numbers turning up for work as usual.

I can’t even imagine thinking this about hard working dedicated professionals who got fucked over

honestly have a word with yourself, if they went to the US they’d be on a 100k

Mainly just public sector health workers.

So yes, mainly doctors and nurses.

And yet resident doctors as a group are attacked from all angles on threads such as these. So many ignorant assertions, not to mention the bitter, envious and just downright nasty ones. I see no resemblance in the picture that is painted of resident doctors and the whip smart, humble, hardworking and dedicated group of them that I personally know. The more I read of these attitudes, the more I think that, if this is indeed representative of the views of the general public, then maybe the NHS is moving towards being the healthcare system that they actually deserve. And hey, there's always Google and AI for those that are that way inclined.

Medicine is an unusual profession. In the normal course of things, you either do a virtuous job which doesn't have any expectation of high income (e.g. charity sector, teaching, nursing), or you do a high-paying job which doesn't come with any back-slapping for what a great guy / gal you are (e.g. C-suite business roles or commercial legal).

Among some doctors I have known, there seems to be a desire to square that circle. They want the kudos of being life-savers (I mean we literally clapped for them during Covid) and they want the very comfortable upper-middle class lifestyle that their mates who went into the finance / legal sectors have. After all, many (most?) doctors went to private schools and top universities, where many of their peers will have gone on to lucrative professions. My sense is that some of these doctors want to do a virtuous, 'vocational' professional, while also keeping up with their more obviously venal peers who prioritised their earning potential in deciding on a career.

Full dislosure - I'm a commercial lawyer. I make good money, but I don't expect anyone to congratulate me for what a great and upstanding contributor to society I am

I think that's what I find a bit tiresome about the resident doctors, the sense that they want to have it all: the praise of the public for the wonderful sacrifice they make for the good of others, and all the trappings of an upper middle class lifestyle.

@crankycurmudgeonI agree. It’s entitlement.

22% of medicine undergrads are privately educated. The BMA has a pop at that too! They say 7% go to private schools but that’s not true for 6th form. It’s double that. Who is to say these young people are not worthy doctors? Since when does school determine capability in medicine? I’d like to know if this 22% are on strike? Possibly they are not the most militant?

Of the 78% only 5% are working class and according to the BMA, that’s wrong too. So in effect it’s a left leaning organising that criticizes its own members! When we see a doctor, does anyone give a flying F as to where they went to school.

The looking at others might be an issue, but many doctors will not personally know loads and loads of high flyers- they just read about them and think they are identical. Like you, my dd is a lawyer and meets highly paid people all the time! Different area of law, but I agree doctors want the publically acclaimed virtue of the role. My dd does get thanked for what she does but, like a doctor, most people appreciate her when they need her! No clapping in the streets though!

Hmm, I don’t think I would equate what most lawyers with being being virtuous or good for society per se in the same way as doctors, nurses, teachers etc.
I also don’t see why doing a vocation or something virtuous means you do not deserve good or high pay in recognition. Why should they not have the trappings you refer to if they have studied and worked for it?
Lastly, I don’t recall any key worker asking for applause for their work.

Thanks

Yes, I'm sure you're correct that there are still staff grades and associate specialists employed in the NHS.

What I was trying to explain - perhaps not very well - was what I understood to be the current medical career training structure and what was generally meant by the term "resident doctors".

My understanding - perhaps mistaken - is that staff grades etc are basically being phased out(?)

Would that be more acceptable and accurate?

In the normal course of things, you either do a virtuous job which doesn't have any expectation of high income (e.g. charity sector, teaching, nursing), or you do a high-paying job which doesn't come with any back-slapping for what a great guy / gal you are (e.g. C-suite business roles or commercial legal)

Exactly why should it be this way?
It’s partly what is wrong with society - the rewards and adulation go to the wrong professions and “jobs”. Mostly those that are self serving .

I think Greybeardey is complaining that I didn't express myself very well and was wrong.

I'm happy to accept what he says

See my reply to him a few minutes ago

@Whatisrichandhaveiearnedit Head teachers earn around what a consultant does. Deputy head, around the salary of a senior “resident” doctor. They have a clear career plan. Obviously management in nursing pays well too. They don’t have to be dead end jobs. Teachers don’t get overtime and enhanced payments for out of hours working. The Nuffield Trust says doctors make 27% extra from this. Then there’s the huge pensions. All public sector is better and salaries should be lower when the overall package is so good. Maybe they should try being self employed?

But those same people have claimed on here that resident doctors don't have time to go to the toilet, don't have time for a break, don't have time for lunch, walk 20,000 steps a day, and don't have time even "to take a sip of water".

Seriously, do you think that is true?

Gosh im so glad that at 18 when they held a gun to my head and forced me into my study and career path that I wasnt given doctor !

Wait?...A gun isnt held to doctors heads as theyre forced kicking and screaming into the years of study and job???

News to me the way they carry on.

The ones striking were bits of kids in 2008 they've lost fuck all.

Some shifts are like that, espec in ED

So very true. Well said.

Solidarity always with workers fighting for better pay and conditions. I work in education and earn a tiny bit less than a new doctor. That's horrifying, cause my wages are shite and I'm barely responsible for anything never mind people's health and lives. Well done to them for knowing their worth and sticking to it, more of us should do the same. (Shame my union are a bit shit)

Doctors aren't "workers". The workers are the ones paying the taxes that pay the doctors wages. Most of whom earn considerably less than the Drs.

Do you think doctors don't pay taxes? And just think, if they are earning considerably more than the "workers". they are paying considerably more taxes. Mind blowing, isn't it!

They do and they don't, because their wages are paid by other people's taxes, they in effect don't contribute anything in their own right because what taxes they do pay have ultimately been paid for by someone else beforehand.

Nobody pays taxes that haven't ultimately been paid by someone else. Nobody magics money out of the air. It's a circle. Many private companies are funded by government grants or subsidised by "corporate welfare". And public sector employees spent their earnings in the public sector. This is such a strange understanding of the economy.

no. Staff grades/specialty docs/associate specialists are present in large numbers and do a huge amount of the work ...just no one on MN has ever heard of us. We're not junior/resident doctors, there are no plans to phase us out (and a lot of services would fall to bits if they did). Medical careers are, in reality, a bit more complex than most of the posts on this thread realise. SAS strike ballot is happening iirc in the next couple of months or so.

yup, have had many nightshifts/weekend days like that (as an anaesthetist). Once operating gets starting out of hours you often can't drink because you won't be able to get to the the loo if that fluid does get as far as your kidneys. It's particularly charming when your a woman gifted with heavy monthly haemorrhages and get stuck working solo without being able to leave the room!

Id like to see you do 5 consecutive night shifts as an a&e doctor and tell me they aren’t workers.

This has been said before by other people, but since you've repeated the statement I'll repeat the answer,

They don't pay tax in any meaningful sense, it's an accounting fiddle to make the taxation system easier.

What NHS doctors pay in tax does not add to the total money available to the public finances because it's paid to them out of money that was previously paid in by taxation on the private sector.

You aren't correct.

The money has to start with from a capitalist selling something for more than it cost them to supply, or borrowing.