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?

someone once told me medicine was one of the few things you can do that pays relatively well without you having to be particularly good at anything.

Someone once told me all lawyers are crooks.

Someone once told me teachers know nothing about life outside school and should never be allowed to give careers advice.

Someone once told me company executives don't do any work: they just play golf, have lunch and rake in the money.

In fact, several people have told me all these things. Does that mean I should believe them even more than you believe that doctors don't have to be good at anything?

The touching faith in HR troubles rather than amuses me. On the basis that the info given was so obviously wrong that one has to wonder how many other things this young doctor fails to question or challenge. Some posters would have it that all doctors are by definition smart, but this sort of unquestioning faith in so called ‘authority’ strongly suggests not. The repetition of something so self evidently incorrect is a separate issue. There’s certainly a strong argument for filtering junior doctors at the various training stages, especially after the expansion of med school places.

Needmoresleep I’ve just read your supplementary. I suggest you re-post the alleged ‘hints’. By that I mean my hints, as opposed to you saying I must be a NHS policy maker! Repetition doesn’t make something thing so, although it doesn’t disprove it either(I think the previous assertion was made on the premise that I appeared to be well informed?)

Quite a binary choice of occupation you’ve offered up, btw 🙂

Unfortunately yet another medicine thread, that was useful to anyone wanting to understand the issues, is ruined by a poster who has a strange agenda. Genuinely @Auchencarplease stop. You claim to be a parent of a doctor but you don’t like them much do you ? Strange behaviour but it’s a free country. But you’re wrong as always. Stick to law !

So out with it. What profession are you in? You have such a jaundiced opinion of young doctors and their observations. There must be a reason why you think so many should be "filtered out". Given your determination to defend the status quo, vested interests spring to mind.

Or are you someone who goes through life determined they are right despite limiting their opinions from observing a small select group. Never let facts get in the way.

And if they are responsible for NHS policy that explains the mess it’s in. Total lack of understanding of the problems. And worse, a total inability to listen to others. Her DS is OK, so everyone must be. Find it strange he’s not met anyone outside his Uni circle at work, but I know some people are a bit afraid of venturing outside their cloistered world. Many of my ex students work in London and they are fully aware of the unemployment facing them and their friends. Some Oxbridge graduates too. Maybe listening skills need improving in the family !

@Needmoresleep think it’s either Boris a bit bored or a clown who knows nothing but likes shouting at people loudly because they know everything 😂

That news story about the Royal Vic is shocking @Needmoresleep , thanks for sharing it. I genuinely thought that sort of behaviour was left in the past, so depressing to hear it’s still happening and (judging by some of the commentary) not an isolated incident, and not being dealt with. How on earth are patients supposed to get appropriate care, or junior doctors supposed to learn, if they end up in a department like that? It reminds me of that shocking stat about female surgeons being sexually assaulted by a colleague - something like a third, I think? I applaud anyone who stands up to challenge this sort of behaviour, but how hard must that be (especially for the more junior members of staff)

It still happens.

The NHS is under more stress than ever before. And often, despite Auchincar's touching faith, weak HR.

Lots of vacancies, including training positions that those with national training numbers are reluctant to apply for, recruitment from doctors new to the NHS all the way to consultant level, dealing with problems by the sideways more or via promotion out of the department, patients with ever higher expectations.

DD started F1 with a clear idea of the area she wanted to work in so planned to apply for a rotation with included this speciality, until it was withdrawn last minute. Apparently all, or almost all, the F2s working there the previous year had quit so the department was not allowed to take any new ones. The attrition rate amongst her F2 peers has been shocking. Of the six F2s who were supposed to start her current rotation, only half were still standing.

But then speak to most dedicated nurses and they will have plenty of tales, with many quitting because it has become too tough and too toxic.

It is not really about money. The NHS seems to have got into a habit of treating its staff as disposable. Increase medical school places so you have a good stock of keen and eager F1s, but then don't worry if they burn out, with no need to provide those who prove that they are competent and resilient with a career path. Easier to open up training to full international competition and focus on the very ambitious who will accept the long hours and high demands. Then when they leave for private health sectors in Dubai/Singapore or for jobs in the City, recruit their replacements from overseas. Ditto with house jobs. No need to offer a level playing field for soon-to-be unemployed F2s. Open international recruitment means you can hire an undemanding doctor from Malawi, with 10 years experience and seniority, at the bottom of the payscale.

And so the NHS limps on. Short term decisions and no loyalty. NHS bank rates in the Trust where DD lives have fallen to an all time low. Depending on how many there are in the same position, she may struggle to pay her bills. The bean counters probably think it is a win that they now have access to such cheap and competent resource.

I’m struggling quite hard to see where I said or implied that my own awareness of the issues for young doctors is generalised from a small set of one single DC’s peers from uni?

Also, but separately, quite obviously my DC have expanded their friendship groups since leaving uni. That’s standard for everyone I’d have thought.

A simple explanation of pay. Might help anyone still thinking they’ve had a massive pay increase.

My ds chose medicine for what I strongly suspect were all the wrong reasons. He's currently in his fourth year of his degree, so I don't know anything about how he'll find the job.

He is now very happy, doing well academically, and knows that he made a good choice.

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies I’m sure he’ll think he’s done the right thing when he starts. But he’ll also realise he deserves more pay (his assistant will start on £16K more after an 18 month course). And he’ll want a job after 2 years hard graft. Any job, training if possible, but if not a job as the doctor he trained for. That’s all anyone is asking for.

I'm not disagreeing with any of your points, @mumsneedwine . That's all ahead of ds, which he is very much aware of.

What I was trying to say is, doing medicine at university for all the wrong reasons may not be a problem, and conversely, choosing it for all the right reasons does not mean that it'll be the right course.

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies sorry, didn’t mean to imply that 😊. I’m not sure you’d get through Med School these days unless you really wanted to be a doctor (although I know some do still go into it for the ‘prestige and the money’ 😂😂). Knowing what ahead can hopefully help students get change before it’s their turn.

There is competition for training places bow - the growth in the industry hadn’t matched the amount of graduates.
I’m from a family of doctors and it’s a hard slog and less than minimum wage (as they work so many hours) initially. Unless really really keen I wouldn’t encourage it. Some sort of medical research might be an alternative.

Not just the number of graduates. We ate still recruiting a lot of doctors and HCAs from overseas.

It makes no sense to increase medical school places if our de facto policy is to prioritise overseas recruitment over supporting career paths for local graduates.

(Short term because many overseas grads we train may not be attracted by the idea of a full career with the NHS, especially given the post-training alternatives with better pay and conditions.)

13,000 training numbers. Just over 11,000 UK grads (& 12,000 foundation jobs). Should be simple!

Medicine gives you a lot more choices than many careers. if it were so terrible there would not be such fierce competition for places (as I think I said above we have a relative starting in September, child of a doctor and indeed grandchild of a doctor). There will be difficulties in all professions of course.

On the comment above I would prefer we had more home grown doctors than those from abroad - I am not saying all those from non English speaking countries abroad have poor English but some do and it is also fairer on UK young people if they have the chance of the jobs instead. It is one big difference with my profession law - you study English law and it is hard to work elsewhere and the other way round too although plenty of people from abroad do come to the uK to try to qualify here.

Anyway good luck to all those starting medicine this Autumn, My uncle started in 1936 (I have his bill from Durham university which in those days did medicine through its Newcastle medical school or something like that) and weirdly it is almost exactly the same fees as today £9k a year after allowing for inflation.

@TizerorFizz what does he do for that? Well for starters he did 80 plus hours as a junior dr , spent over 20 years training , works long, unsociable hours and may get called in the middle of the night , his speciality is surgery . Yes others have hard jobs as well but dealing with other people's lives on a daily basis must have some affect on doctors . My father earned a lot more than him and he had zero qualifications so you quoting salaries is pretty irrelevant .

I wish people would read. We are not talking about years ago. We are talking about now. 20,000 doctors about to be unemployed. Pay cut by 22%. I don’t care that in the past it was also a hard job. It did come with decent cash and no debt though.

Want a doctor? Then you’re going to need to support them or they won’t exist. You’ll get a PA instead.

The NHS is under more stress than ever before. And often, despite Auchincar's touching faith, weak HR

Needmoresleep how on earth or in what world do you get that I have 'touching faith' either in the NHS or its HR?

Read back over the past two pages and you'll find that I say in terms that the NHS is in a dire state and that all the doctors in my sphere have huge concerns. Also that the unquestioning attitude the young doctor that mumsneedwine referenced in regards to mat rights displays a concerning level of passiveness in the face of very clearly incorrect info from HR.

That is the polar opposite of any faith, touching or not.

To be fair to that young doctor @Auchencar, she’d been on nights in ED and didn’t think HR would give incorrect advice. But contacted BMA and was sorted quickly. Doctors are tired !