How much do you think junior doctors get paid?

My other half is a teacher and I will argue all day long that she has it worse than junior doctors.

Do you know any junior doctors to make such a comparison? But go on, enlighten us to how you come to that conclusion?

Er, I am one?

STW at its finest 🙂

6) There is a huge huge recruitment crisis in General Practice, and for me, and a lot of my cohort in our last 10 years of practice (30 Doctoring down, hopefully 7-8 to go), the Government’s behaviour, attitude to pensions and to “the 7 day NHS” is encouraging us to leave earlier than we would have, and not to consider working reduced hours etc.

From your perspective, why is that? The new conditions? More ‘glamorous’ work elsewhere? Too much effort (certainly would be for me)? Leaving for overseas work (I know of 2 friends/relatives that have done this)?

It isn’t enough.
I’m sure some people look at the wage at the higher end of the scale and think that is what ‘all’ doctors earn.
But to me, they are worth it.

On the other hand, if we look at the finance industry and what they earn, and contribute to society… I think that anyone who studies any form of finance, should work/earn the same as junior docs….

Doctors gave me back my leg. How do we help?

I bet they only stole it for a prank.

The problem with solving the shortage of doctors is that you are effectively arguing for people who get paid above average to be paid more. It’s a hard sell.

Corbyn can get to lead the labour party on the back of scrapping benfits cuts and tax credits; grass roots funding for the NHS etc.

But you won’t hear a single politician say the way to solve the GP crisis is to give GPs more money and better conditions. But that is probably what it would take in the long to attract more trainees and retain existing staff.

People have got to remeber that to become a doctor is bloody hard. You are competing for undergrads who can become anything they want, literally. Right now why you you chose to be a doctor for the NHS?

I come from a family of doctors but unfortunately I decided to go into Engineering. Don’t feel sorry for Doctors. Sure life as a Junior Doctor is hard and not particularly well paid, but over their careers they will do very very well for themselves. My uncles are defiantly not short of a bob or two.

It’s like any profession, some will be doing better than others. In Engineering some Engineers get paid a pittance, some own and run multi-billion dollar global companies.

My other half is a teacher and I will argue all day long that she has it worse than junior doctors.
Do you know any junior doctors to make such a comparison? But go on, enlighten us to how you come to that conclusion?
Er, I am one?

STW at its finest

You must be a lazy junior doctor and your other half a crap teacher then 😉

I jest of course..

fair enough if thats your exp. I remember when my brother was a junior doctor the tales of hell he would comeout with relating to A&E on a sunday morning at 3am were eye opening.

At roughly the same time my mum returned to the teaching profession, can’t ever remember her having to do 60 hour weeks, she had long holidays, never had to work at the weekend and was never threatened by drunken nutters looking for a scrap in the early hours.

And heres me thinking she was paid less as well!

edit…have we worked out how much they get paid yet. 22k starting salary is shocking if I’ve read that link correctly.

But you won’t hear a single politician say the way to solve the GP crisis is to give GPs more money and better conditions. But that is probably what it would take in the long to attract more trainees and retain existing staff.

My theory on the attracting trainees bit is that the people who are pushed towards medicine in school are the sort of people for whom general practice is deeply unappealing.

Overwhelmingly most junior doctors I know are happiest when there’s work to do, an intervention to be made a patient load to be managed and so on. They’re very pro-active people.

The people* who are happiest getting to know long term patients, dealing with minor complaints and passing more serious conditions on to someone else have a very different mindset to what I’d say is typical.

*and out of probably 40 people I know making the choice this year or last I can think of three who are choosing GP.

The problem with solving the shortage of doctors is that you are effectively arguing for people who get paid above average to be paid more. It’s a hard sell.

Yep. It’s also partly why we struggle with publicly complaining about this in an organised manner. How can we as doctors, publicly whinge about pay when we earn more than the majority of the population? Yep, we probably could have done better paid jobs with our grades and results, yep this new contract is unfair and simply rude, yes we’re undervalued compared to other countries but it’s going to be hard to convince the public we deserve more without looking greedy.

Doctor wages in the UK are criminal for the training, level of responsibility and hours they work. As a comparator, in the US most of my Physician friends started straight out of medical school on around $140k a year, and the vast majority of them are now earning in excess of $350k a year.

22k isn’t that bad a starting wage for someone with an undergraduate degree though. Finding a job in medicine is a lot easier than some other professions but there are a significant number of numpty doctors (and medical students) out there.

22k isn’t that bad a starting wage for someone with an undergraduate degree though.

Two undergraduate degrees!

Three years BSc (Hons) Medicine, followed by another three years to get MB ChB.

when she was fresh out of medical school my Mrs wasn’t far off minimum wage by the time you looked at her hours worked, MDUS memberships and insurance type stuff. She had to undertake audits (in her own time) of her working hours to prove that the trust were not breaching WTD and, when they were, she had to (in her own time) change the audit to make them look squeaky clean. Earning a decent salary now but it took about 12 years of studying and junior jobs to get there.

Not read the whole thread so forgive me if this has already been mentioned but the way post grad training is managed now results in a pretty crappy lifestyle for newly qualified doctors. 6 months contracts then moving across the country for the next one is the norm. Fine if you regard this as an extension of your studies but rubbish if you are actually trying to settle down with family and other grown up stuff.

Lemonysam

The job has changed, I spend tons of time doing acute medicine, diagnosing cancers, managing Diabetes to a better standard than the Hospital, Working in close collaboration with the Cardiologists. We can do or organise almost every outpatient test. I’d love to see more trivial stuff every now and then! By the time I send someone to a Consultant, we have investigated them to well beyond junior Dr levels.

But junior Drs don’t know this. I go and spend days observing how my hospital colleagues work. The other way around? – never happened…

But your point about personality is well taken. For my job you have to like people, like knowing them, like acute medicine, and be happy managing and living with risk. That doesn’t apply to many of the current intake.

22k isn’t that bad a starting wage for someone with an undergraduate degree though.

It’s a false equivalence to just call it an undergraduate degree though. Discounting the fact that they’re effectively doing a couple of years of work placement as they go through Med School the degree is as long as doing a normal undergraduate degree, a year in industry and a masters. With a vocational degree and relevant masters you’d be unlucky not to earn more than that in most industries.

But junior Drs don’t know this. I go and spend days observing how my hospital colleagues work. The other way around? – never happened.

Good point, sorry, I meant to include a paragraph about how GP placements at F1/F2 also show them the “worst” of GP but very little of the more “interesting” stuff but I forgot. This is, I suspect, in part because resources are so stretched that it’s hard to set aside the time to give a more rounded experience.

This is a really interesting discussion – thanks all.

Anyone ever met a poor doctor? Seriously big salaries, good pensions and virtual total job security, most people would love those. Of course you earn less at the start every profession does.

As for comparing pay to the US well campaign for a privatised health service then. I’m sure your pay would go up then.

Seriously big salaries, good pensions and virtual total job security, most people would love those.

You’ve not read past the title then?

Two undergraduate degrees!

its one confered undergraduate degree (unless you go to St Andrews then you do a pre-clinical degree then go on to do a MB ChB but thats because you have to go to a different university)

It’s a false equivalence to just call it an undergraduate degree though. Discounting the fact that they’re effectively doing a couple of years of work placement as they go through Med School the degree is as long as doing a normal undergraduate degree, a year in industry and a masters

other coures have placements too that are longer than those without. It is still a bachelors degree.

It also doesn’t give them the right to the title either as its a job description not a salutaion 😛

its an undergrasuate degree

its an undergrasuate degree

I didn’t dispute that, I just pointed out that it was a silly argument.

googled randomly from the web….

What is the Average Graduate Starting Salary in the UK?

The answer to this depends on whether you want the average amount that graduates are making 6 months after University (regardless of if they have a graduate job) or if you want the the average starting salary offered by graduate recruiters.

According to HECSU’s What Do Graduates Do? Report, the average salary for UK graduates in full-time employment six months after graduation range between £18,000-£24,000.

However, The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) and HighFliers.co.uk published a report that stated the average starting salary was £29,000, while TheBigChoice.com has this a little lower at £26,500.

If we all agree that a junior doc probably has to work longer, more unsociable hours, the degree takes longer to achieve, and theres probably more responsibility than your normal grad job, then the starting salary starts to look a bit pish.

Where you really want to work as a graduate is Aldi…42k starting salary and a shiny Audi a4 first day in job…wtf?

I didn’t dispute that, I just pointed out that it was a silly argument.

its not a silly argument as I am basing their starting pay with other jobs that require an undergraduate degree.

Anyone ever met a poor doctor?

What do you mean by this?
Do you mean “a doctor without much money”? A doctor with no time to see family? A doctor on the verge of suicide through stress (or, unfortunately in my own professional life “a doctor who committed suicide through stress”)? A doctor who’s stopped caring?

I think you probably mean the first, but should be aware of the others…

DrP

We do have medical students with us for quite a lot of the year, but by the time they reach us they have been subject to a culture of contempt on the part of many hospital Drs.

And I think that the current admissions criteria are leading to well motivated and intelligent medical students, but not always ones who really like people.

They want to Meet, Treat and Street the patients.

I’ve picked up two people with Pulmonary Emboli, someone with nephrotic syndrome and some other stuff in the last 2 weeks, but my favourite moment was receiving a bit of the birthday cake from a 90 year old’s party.

its one confered undergraduate degree

As above, my wife did 3 years at one uni to get her BSc (Hons) Medicine, followed by another 3 years at another uni (+hospital) to get her MBChB.

Pretty sure that most people would recognise that as two degrees. No?

My theory on the attracting trainees bit is that the people who are pushed towards medicine in school are the sort of people for whom general practice is deeply unappealing.

I think that’s a very good point, but I don’t have the first idea how you’d address it.

I think that’s a very good point, but I don’t have the first idea how you’d address it.

Nor have I. I don’t think the entry requirements are necessarily a good starting point nor is the interview process* designed to scope out that kind of person. I don’t think the focus on science helps, obviously a biology background helps for some things but from what my OH, who is a graduate entry with a biochem degree, found – it really wasn’t that necessary. Several of her fellow fast-track medics were from arts backgrounds and two out of the three people I mentioned before have arts degrees.

This might be lazy stereotyping on my part though.

*I have had some experience of this bit, having gone through it then declined my offers and done something else instead. This was a decade ago though so it may have changed.

This is the basic starting salary though isn’t it?

It does not take into account “Ash Cash” for instance? And all the other bits of paper work they can put a signature too and get paid?

No one forces them to be a doctor, their choice. So the money is crap for a year or two at least you know you on the up. Most mere mortals can work 20 years plus on that salary and think it okish.

Don’t like it don’t do it no one holds gun to your head FFS

And I think that the current admissions criteria are leading to well motivated and intelligent medical students

depends on what university. some of the ones I get to teach I wouldn’t trust them to fill out a preciption correctly let alone diagnose a cut lol

As above, my wife did 3 years at one uni to get her BSc (Hons) Medicine, followed by another 3 years at another uni (+hospital) to get her MBChB.

Pretty sure that most people would recognise that as two degrees.

if she graduated twice then yes thats two degrees – but only because of the way the school works. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Fundee just do the one course but St Andrews is like that. I’m based my comment on the full MB ChB.

Most mere mortals can work 20 years plus on that salary and think it okish.

Can they? Average UK salary is £26,500

I doubt there are many folk with multiple degrees working for 20 years on four grand less than that.

Don’t like it don’t do it no one holds gun to your head FFS

That’s the problem – we need people to do it – if they don’t then the whole thing falls apart and expensive private healthcare steps in.

(Some would say that is the current government’s intention)

It does not take into account “Ash Cash” for instance? And all the other bits of paper work they can put a signature too and get paid?

You realise that for Ash Cash they are taking medical and legal responsibility for the verifying the cause of death?

It’s a bit beyond just being paid for a signature.

The starting salary is not great (though the basic figure is misleading with the extras) and there’s no doubt that the hours are hard. But the job security and career progression is something few others have these days. I know two doctors, one only works part time by choice and runs a hobby business the rest of the time, the other has brought up a large family including putting them through private education (partially). They aren’t struggling, neither of them has ever been short of work. For comparison, I know a lot of scientists and almost all of them have had a much harder time of things. That’s a choice I really wouldn’t recommend these days.

Ash cash might *might* just cover some of a doctors extra expenses such as exam fees, indemnity, stethoscopes, courses etc.

For comparison, I know a lot of scientists and almost all of them have had a much harder time of things.

:waves:

How much do junior doctors get paid, not enough. It is however illuminati e that medical school remains hugely oversubscribed and I don’t think it’s because the students are totally altruistic

I think the key issue here isn’t that doctors get paid X amount, and that X amount is ‘a lot’.
It’s the fact they DID get paid X, and now are getting paid ‘less than X for more work’, which however way you look at it, isn’t very appealing.

This makes the individuals in question feel threatened, under valued and not respected. It then makes the whole profession feel that. Which in turn will cause the profession to dissipate.
Then you’ll be left with no doctors at all.

And THEN the big issue will be… WHO WILL YOU ALL MOAN AND WINGE ABOUT THEN? Bin men “being terrible at collecting your bins – i could do it much better”? Ticket collectors on the train – “they don’t know how to collect tickets – I saw it on the internet and could do much better…”?
etc etc

DrP (first part in seriousness…second part in jest..)

Bin men “being terrible at collecting your bins – i could do it much better

I wouldn’t leave the bins in front of people’s drives so they can’t drive in like ours do lol