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?

I support them.

They are our best, brightest and hardest working from school and for a long time more. The number of exams they have to take is unbelievable. They could be earning a ton in finance or tech for fewer hours but they choose this vocation.

Sure other key workers work hard too but they do not have the sheer brains and stamina to be a junior doctor. We should value our doctors. There are not enough of them around.

They were abysmally under paid. They are now slightly less underpaid.

I do not think they are lazy or greedy at all.

I do think you are shortsighted. I also think years of Tory underfunding has made this mess - the resident Dr’s aren’t the only ones being underpaid and undervalued, they just happen to be the ones shouting the loudest.

I support them

I thought it means "Hand to Heart".

I have three problems with them striking.

One is that from the look of their ages, they all knew what the pay would be before they did their training and in fact are now much better off.

Two is that there aren't enough jobs for them to go onto when they finish their training, so it's utterly illogical to demand higher pay when the profession is over supplied.

Three is that the union that's striking, the BMA, have offered their own staff less than the rate of inflation, saying its all they can afford, which is utterly hypocritical.

I do think it's crazy that we have NHS staff with sky high student loans. I think they should get their nurse/doctor/etc training for free in return for committing to work in the NHS for at least 5 years.

YABU if we dont make the job attractive, people won't want to do it.

Well those ‘lots of people’ could always spend 6-7 years training, rack up a massive student loan and then start working as a doctor for £36000 then.

Yes, it is already happening with teaching (another chronically under valued profession).

How much do the consultants who are covering the shifts get paid ? It feels like the strike actually reduces the money in the pot ?

I support them.

There are lots of professions people go into because they are greedy, selfish, entitled & lazy and this isn't one of them.

I am a junior doctor. Hardly any of my colleagues are lazy or selfish- most are incredibly hard working and genuinely care about their patients. It is a tough job and the pay is not great.

I supported the strikes a few years ago (when i feel pay really was diabolical!) but can not and do not support them this time round. I agree with many of the above comments- everyone is struggling at the moment finacially and I think these strikes are out of touch with reality. It angers and upsets me greatly.

Also it was just over half the BMA membership who voted in the ballot. So nearly half of BMA memberships did not vote for these strikes and thousands of resident doctors have chosen not to join the BMA so are ineligable to vote. Thus it is less than half of all resident doctors who have actually voted in favour of this strike. Lots of my colleagues are as equally appalled as me about them. Please keep this in mind- don't tar us all with the same brush.

Except MPs! Their salaries seem to have kept up with inflation and they certainly don't work as hard as doctors!
Some MPs do their jobs well, others seem to think it's a sinecure but they are not under the kind of pressure that doctors are and don't need to have the same level of education

I don't agree with striking in any form.
It causes misery for people who cannot affect the outcome.

Hope that helps

I believe it means “hope that helps”. It’s meant to be deliberately patronising.

I think you and all of the people in agreement with you should be ashamed of themselves. Working in the NHS is a thankless job which many are leaving in their droves. The NHS is under massive pressure, yes due to years of austerity and underfunding but also because simply people attend hospitals/walk in centres and call emergency services when they simply don’t need too. If more families looked after their elderly relatives the pressure on the NHS would be much less. There would be less bed blocking in hospitals, fewer people attending A&E due to falls/malnutrition/dehydration. There would be less pressure on community staff if people were cared for properly by family as it used to be. It is honestly getting outrageous the entitlement of the general public, the junior doctors work horrific shift patterns in extremely high pressure roles. Yes many will say well they don’t have to do it but someone does as patients families certainly aren’t!

They work hard and deserve the pay. However, so do many other occupations. Carers, teachers, social workers, nursery nurses, teaching assistants, warehouse operatives, paramedics, military etc. They all deserve a pay rise too!

What money are we talking here compares to years of experience ?

I’ve lost some sympathy due to the timing of strikes. Tacking them on to bank holiday weekends just seems like wanting to maximise time off.

My DD is just about to qualify as a Midwife. She'll have £70k of student debt round her neck for a £29k starting salary but there are no jobs locally for her to even get a foot inside the door of a maternity unit. One of her school friends is a junior Doctor who went out to Australia last year and isn't planning to come back, they're living a great life out there and are very well paid for the hours they work (was formerly working in A & E in London).

The Government needs a serious kick up the arse. The NHS is no longer fit for purpose.

Yes.

HTH

@Hoops23

That’s interesting, thank you. The BMA evidently don’t speak for all, or even the majority, of junior doctors.

After reading yours, and others’ responses I now accept I was wrong to accuse the doctors of being lazy, even to provoke a debate. I stand corrected.

whilst I agree generally, anyone can do those jobs. Most of them are unskilled, and there is no impact when an unhappy person leaves them, the same can’t be said for doctors

I graduated in 2009 as a doctor in the UK. Out of my uni friendship group 80% of us are not working for the NHS any more. We’ve all left for better wages, recognition and conditions. The NHS runs the risk of losing more and more UK trained doctors if pay and conditions don’t improve.

Everyone wants and deserves a higher salary.

resident Dr strikes are very clever in saying how little they earn. What they never say si what their average salary is after 3, 5 and 10 years. What their average salary is if they work full time for 30 years. Doesn’t look so bad then. Plus their pension after 30 years full pay.

compare that with other public service jobs - a nurse, a teacher, a paramedic say,