To be or not to be a doctor?

[MrsDThaskala]

DD said today that she’s been in thinking about becoming a doctor. Not sure what area, not sure what kind, just said it out of the blue today. I mean she’s doing well in her sciences. But quite honestly, the doctors I know, GP and hospital doctors, and a surgeon always say how stressed they are, how much pressure hospitals are under, how hard medical school is….etc. not necessarily for my DD but what do you think? With all that we know about the NHS right now, what’s your take on becoming a doctor?

My DD loves being a doctor. But unemployment is a real thing at the moment with an anticipated tsunami coming this August. Let’s hope it gets fixed soon.

At the moment it seems it is a nightmare. Long stressful training, no guarantee of where you may be placed and then when you do qualify you feel hard done by and go on strike…..

Once you qualify you’ll earn £17 an hour for working, even on Xmas day - think feeling hard done by is justified. Moved around every 6-12 months for 9 years, no say in where you go. And currently facing unemployment. With £100,000 of debt. And can only have 9 days of leave every 4 months so getting a 2 week holiday is impossible, unless have a v kind rota coordinator. Pay for parking every day. And to just do your job (GMC and exam fees, indemnity) it will cost you £2,000
a year. Am I selling it well ?

@mumsneedwine
youre right! I have a medic dd, and a pharmacist dd, the pharmacist out earns the doctor by £1, an hour.
I deffo would not recommend medicine or hcp atm

@Delphigirl The job is not low pay! That’s utter fiction. As in many jobs the pay isn’t great at the start and it’s a bit of a long haul, but obviously it’s still a very popular career. It’s somewhat offensive to genuinely low paid people to say it is.

I also think status drops when there’s strikes involved. Teachers would also say their status has lowered. When people are seen as professionals, strikes are not what they do. Years ago it was miners and factory workers: now it’s people working for the state. Obviously these potential doctors can find another scientific career but which one pays better and has a stonking pension? Maybe these jobs are just waiting to be taken very easily, but I doubt it.

The difficulties faced this year are of course worrying, but consultants start on £105,000. These are the grades for others when out of foundation stage. Low pay?

What a brilliant career. You can be as generalist or specialist as you like, practise anywhere in the world for private institutions through to medicin sans frontiers. And you get well paid. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

People will always need doctors. In a world where a lot of jobs are under threat from AI, having a profession that you can take anywhere in my book is invaluable.

@TizerorFizz yes low pay, for saving lives. After many many years of training. And consultants don’t start on more than £92K. And most current young doctors won’t get to be one as there are not enough jobs. Lots will be stuck on £49K for years. Yes a good salary, although it equates to £19 an hour. As a lawyer I'm sure you know all about low paying jobs.

You really dislike medics don’t you.

It’s big just the pay, it’s the way you are treated for that £17 an hour (F1 pay). Made to move every 6-12 months, with no say in where that will be. No say in your rota, you just have to live with missing many important events as no say in that either.

Cant think if any other job that has one possible employer. No option to leave and move elsewhere.

Despite this, doctors love their jobs. Because they get to save lives and make people better. Not a bad way to spend your day.

I don’t understand the low pay thing? My friend who is a consultant had just retired at 59 and is one of the few people I know with a massive final salary pension pot of over £1m…?

To put their pay into context, they now earn 22% less than before the pandemic. FPR is what they would be earning now if their pay had gone up as inflation.

@HotHorseRadish your friend has retired, so was well paid. Doctors aren’t any more. That’s the whole point.

I do find it odd that some people seem not to value the doctors that could one day save their life, or that of their loved ones, or alleviate their suffering etc yet seem happy to line the pockets of those whose role (in many guises) is to flog as much ‘stuff’ as possible to the masses.
I know which is more valuable to me.

The job is not low pay! That’s utter fiction

Not in absolute terms but it is low pay for the:
-qualifications and add-ons you need to just consider applying for the degree
-for the application and interview process to get onto the degree course
-rigor and length of the degree
-post graduate workload, hours and responsibilities
-post graduate examinations and costs
/additional qualifications that are frequently required and personal financial and training costs
-disruption to personal life - moving long distances at short notice with no agency in the decisions
-and now, the lack of jobs

That’a not to say that there aren’t other jobs that require all of the above and deserve more pay but I can’t think of any and no, nursing is not one of them, I’m afraid. They are absolutely essential and deserve more pay but do not full the above.

Many doctors and potential doctors are questioning medicine as a career choice nowadays.
You can enter certain 3 year degree with lower grades, less stellar UCAS, no additional exams or interview and start working at 21y, start earning reasonably well and climb up the ladder.
By the time a medic the same age graduates you will have had 3 years of earnings under your belt plus not paid for university fees etc for those 3 years and could be well over a resident doctor’s starting salary. No weekends, no nights.

Chose your career right and work and your annual bonus can be more than the annual salary of a doctor. I appreciate there are few jobs of this type but someone who has the aptitude to jump through all the hoops and do the hours of work and exams to be a doctor could certainly achieve this.

Well said! I appreciate that junior doctors are not well paid, but after they reach consultancy, they have it FAR easier than lawyers… around my neck of the woods, most of them are able to easily afford 3 or 4 children in private education from age 3, and have a day off per week to do very lucrative private work etc.
There’s also huge kudos attached to the role.
GPs are able to work part time on a very good salary which might not be possible for lawyers.

@aliceinawonderland that’s the whole point !!! Most won’t now be able to make consultant as there are not enough jobs. Lots won’t even make ST1. They’ll be unemployed, when waiting lists are 7 million people. They are not respected at all. Oh and GPs can’t get jobs - some are driving Ubers and working in Tesco. And part time is usually still 40+ hours a week.

Why shouldn’t they be paid for the job they do NOW. Not what they might do in the future. Their landlords and utility companies won’t accept, well one day I might have a job that gets me lots of money.

They don’t want to strike, most can’t afford to. But they also don’t think they are 22% less qualified than 10 years ago. If there is another pandemic do not expect any goodwill from any medical staff. Banging pans and clapping, but then pay cuts accepted by the UK public.

I'm a doctor in Australia. We most certainly do have a public system, it's the main source of health care for most people and for everybody who is actually sick.

I will admit I don't love it when UK doctors come here. They don't work very hard, I assume because they think they're just in the colonies or because it's sunny they imagine they're on holiday. Much much prefer international graduates from Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Most of my colleagues feel the same.

If your daughter is meant to be a doctor no other health care profession will suffice. It's as difficult and mad and awful and incredible as that.

A friend’s son qualified a year or so ago. Spent a 6 month stint in A&E in a London hospital and realised that it wasn’t the career for him, he just couldn’t deal with the emotional side of the job.

Supportive parents who understood, he’s now working as a medical analyst.

My DD loves being a doctor. But she would like some autonomy over where she lives. She’ll be moved hospital every 6-12 months for the next 7 years. With no say where she goes within the Deanery. She’d like a holiday with friends, but getting time off together is impossible (it’s not like other jobs where you ask for 2 weeks a year in advance - can’t do that as only know shift pattern 12 weeks in advance & there are only some types of day that you can take off).

It used to be that the bad treatment was off set with decent pay, but that’s no more. If you think £20 an hour is enough for the doctor intubating your 3 year old at 2am then I’m at a loss. I just paid my plumber £70 an hour call out fee.

@MrsSkylerWhite your friends DS can not have done a 6 month stint in A&E straight after qualifying. All F1 rotations are 4 months.

My mistake. It was a few months, I assumed 6.
If it’s only 4, that makes it worse! To have made that decision so soon after qualifying (together with our own experiences in A&E earlier this year with life-threatening illness, one occasion involving a 54 hour wait for a bed) tells me that the pressure is just too much.

I don’t know how anyone does the job. Very grateful that they do, though.

@MrsSkylerWhite it’s v unusual for someone to bail after first F1 placement, especially as A&E he’d have been supernumerary and just observing. Must have really hated medicine !
Moat of them love it as a job. They’d just like a better salary and not to move every 6 months. Finding rental places is really hard these days.

My DC is 26 and can’t even get a 10K car loan because she although is a fully qualified doctor, with no debt (except of course over £100K student debt) who qualified 3 years ago, her contract is only 2 years, as is the case for all doctors in CT1 specialist training.
No such thing as a permanent contract until you’re well into your thirties if you want to specialise.

But successive governments seem happy for their citizens to receive sub-standard healthcare with eg very poor cancer survival stats. As fewer doctors are able to become specialists the expertise needed to provide good treatment will continue to diminish.

The system stinks.

The thing I don’t understand is how many people on threads like these really don’t seem to care. Until it is their turn to have cancer or another serious illness I suppose.

People don’t understand how bad it is to be a doctor in this country. They are treated like rubbish. You’d think they’d be employed by the NHS so would get continuous service. But nope, they are employed by individual trusts, so each time they HAVE to move their employment status resets to zero. Maternity pay is a dream for most resident doctors as getting 2 years at one hospital is unheard of.
It would be such a simple fix. Run through training at one trust for every speciality, no need to rotate 100s of miles every 6 months. Priority for UK grads (from wherever they come from) so tax payer recoups their investment. And pay that reflects the job they do, like it has in the past (hence the rich consultants).

Want a doctor ? Then pay and look out for them. Because otherwise they’ll leave.

Always love it when people said to teachers, if you don’t like it then leave. So they did and we now have a chronic shortage meaning many classes are being taught by any warm body we can find.

If she really wants to then go for it. If she isn't sure then probably not. You need determination, dedication and a will to succeed.