Out of interest, what would the responsibilities of a new graduate in engineering be and what do you think the responsibilities of an F1 are?

Depends on the business sector and the industry, in my case it was mostly calculations and checking drawings. For others it’s being stuck on a rig in the North Sea.

The career progression is mostly:
2 years Graduate – do the calculations, not much creative thinking required
2-5 years Engineer – you’re allowed to have an opinion now
5- 10 Senior Engineer – your allowed to tell the graduates your opinion
10-20 Principal engineer – you actually get to do what most people would consider designing.
20 + Principal consultant – you write the book on how to do stuff.

Most people stop when they find a niche that pays better than a promotion (I’ve gone into Safety), i.e. you should be able to find a career path for yourself that’s financially rewarding even if you don’t follow the pyramid up into management.

Should Dr’s be paid more than engineers, probably, by a lot, probably not. They’re very different jobs though. The biggest difference is no one understands WTF ‘engineer’ actually is these days. The level of public perception would be the equivalent of believing that Dr’s work at Domminos as Dr Otker make’s pizzas.

Could be worse, in the past a decent chunk of high performing graduates* went back to uni to do accelerated medical degrees. Add on an extra two years of debt.

*Including my OH.

She is then also currently revising for her final Royal College Consultant exams. This has lightened our bank account by £4k for the exam fee, plus books at £100 + per book, and just about any free time is taken up by revision.

Yep. MrsS was a lead author on a research paper with her supervisor. Mostly written at home in her “free time”. Now she is expected to present it at an upcoming conference in the States. She is expected to do this in her own free time AND pay for the flights, hotel, car hire etc out of her own pocket.

Sorry I don’t really follow – what do you mean by won’t be covering the interest?

Student loans now accrue interest. It depends on your salary, but if you earn above £41K it’s RPI +3%.

So if you earn £50K, and RPI is 2% then the balance increases by 5% a p/a. On a 70K loan that’ll be £3500.

For someone who earns £50K, repayments will be 9% of everything above £21K, or £2610 a year. So the balance will increase by £890 a year.

If they earn £60K, their repayments will be £3510, so the balance will decrease by £10 a year 😉

Obviously though, in the time it takes someone to get to that 60K level, their balance will have increased substantially from what it was when they graduated….

I should just say that many hospital doctors are not concerned about the hours they work, indeed they are actually concerned that they do now no get enough training hours.

The are getting peed off because the government is continually taking financial reward away from them, and expecting more, whilst making them out to be the bad guys.

FunkyDunc – Member

whilst making them out to be the bad guys.

I think that’s a massive part of it. It’s one thing to be shat on; it’s another to have to hear over and over about how you deserve to be shat on.

2 years Graduate – do the calculations, not much creative thinking required

On the doctor’s side the very first shift* could involve being thrown in to being the primary point of contact for multiple wards in a hospital they barely know, assessing patients, monitoring and prioritising problems, overnight, whilst attending crashes. It doesn’t strike me as being a fair comparison.

https://www.medicalcareers.nhs.uk/medical_students/first_week_as_an_f1_doctor.aspx

*for those unlucky few who get an on-call first up.

Basic salary bands currently increases with experience in the job – part of the changes being suggested is to stop doing this.

But surely at your appraisal if you’ve done good work you get an uplift if not you stay where you are. Reality is most doctors are highly driven individuals so I doubt it would be that hard to show progress. Failing that allow market forces to work and move job.

The responsibility thing is interesting, as a top end engineer if they got something wrong could end up with the deaths of many, many people. Whereas I suspect on the whole a doctor can only kill one person at a time. So who has more responsibility?

MrsS was a lead author on a research paper with her supervisor. Mostly written at home in her “free time”. Now she is expected to present it at an upcoming conference in the States. She is expected to do this in her own free time AND pay for the flights, hotel, car hire etc out of her own pocket.

Well sounds like her boss considers there to be no benefit to the NHS for her to be off presenting papers instead of being in the office. Normally private companies only let you present because it is good PR.

On the doctor’s side the very first shift* could involve being thrown in to being the primary point of contact for multiple wards in a hospital they barely know, assessing patients, monitoring and prioritising problems, overnight, whilst attending crashes. It doesn’t strike me as being a fair comparison.

You said you didn’t want an argument, but it’s a fair comparison because both jobs require AAA at A-level, 4 years of undergraduate degree to get an MEng, and a lot have an MSc on top of that.

To paraphrase your worst case start, On the engineer’s side the very first placement could involve being thrown in to being the primary point of contact for a gas plant in a desert they barely know, whilst the locals are shooting just outside the fence. That’s not made up, a colleague ended up in Tunisia during the uprising and was evacuated after this happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Amenas_hostage_crisis

Give me A&E on a Saturday night any week.

Anyway, I’m not saying Dr’s are paid too much, they’re not, I think they pay is however about right, and that a pay cut or stopping pay-rises is unfair.

Yeah and don’t us patients know that doctors are dropped in it as the death stats go up hugely on weekends and when junior doctors first arrive out of Uni. To me this has nothing to do with pay and all to do with poor working practices by the NHS.

There is a good reason why a graduate engineer has a restricted level of responsibility and that’s because a bridge or stadium collapse, or a oil rig going up in flames has massive consequences. So as a profession there are checks to stop that happening. The result of which things are checked by experience engineers.

Well sounds like her boss considers there to be no benefit to the NHS for her to be off presenting papers instead of being in the office.

To be able to get signed off through the stages of the training ladder, you have to have had papers published, attended conferences etc etc. If you dont, then you wont get to the next stage.

Doctors get a £600 per year study budget, which goes no where.

To me this has nothing to do with pay and all to do with poor working practices by the NHS.

Ah so now you are blaming the ‘people’ who work in the NHS. The NHS is constained by its size and funding. Only Government can influence those 2 things. Again the government has worked its magic on you to blame the NHS…

my niece is married to a doctor. he’s 33 so is still relatively young. he doesnt work in a hospital nor does he work for a practice. instead he does locum work….basically he goes to work anywhere they need his services be that a hospital, walk in clinic or a GP service.
driving back from london once, his agency guy who gets him the jobs, called him and asked if he fancied doing a four day stint at a walk in clinic in lancaster…accomodation would be paid for and the hourly rate was £97!!
now i know why he does what he does and working at those rates means that he only ever does a maximum of a 4 day week, thus giving him time for his family.

incidentally the lancaster gig was 4 days of 10 hour shifts!!

Yes but you don’t have to go abroad to go to a conference.

£600 more than I get and yet I’m expected to keep up to date.

Why so defensive about NHS staff, they aren’t all perfect and working practices can always be improved upon and that’s the same as everywhere.

But surely at your appraisal if you’ve done good work you get an uplift if not you stay where you are. Reality is most doctors are highly driven individuals so I doubt it would be that hard to show progress. Failing that allow market forces to work and move job.

Our yearly appraisals have no bearing on how much we are paid. There are no yearly bonuses. The appraisals are there simply to check that we are hitting training targets (e.g. done a certain number of procedures, seen a certain number of symptoms/diagnoses – one of the things I have to get “signed off” is “genitourinary discharge”…). If we don’t hit the targets, we are “held back” a year for further training.

Non-consultant/GP junior doctors aren’t allowed to work for anyone other than the NHS – i.e. there are no market forces because we are not allowed to work for private companies to the exclusion of the NHS. The GP in the example above will be a fully qualified GP, so therefore not a “junior doctor” as is being discussed at the moment.

I can volunteer to do extra shifts either through my hospital or through a locum agency. The nationally agreed hourly rate for my experience (9 years post graduation, senior registrar, competent to do the procedures listed above) is £32/hr. However, this is over and above the hours that I am contractually obliged to work for the NHS.

There is also a clause in my current contract that says, in “extenuating circumnstances”, I can be forced to work extra hours for no extra pay e.g. if someone calls in sick and there’s no cover.

Gonzy – thats fine if he wants to be a career temp for the rest of his life. He isnt in a training programme, and will probably never be able to get back on one. So whilst we have the current situation of low training numbers and better conditions abroad for career doctors he will be quids in. If subsequent governments increase training posts, or make it more favourable to stay in the UK, then he will struggle to get work.

You could also say that because he is only doing Locums, he skills/training will not be up to date so patient care will suffer.

As I have already said there is plenty of money to be made as a Locum currently at the minute, as government have reduced the number of training posts, and things are getting that bad that doctors are leaving the profession. Its just a supply and demand thing.

This is about Doctors wanting to do the job as a career.

Dragon – Not being defensive at all, just trying to point out where doctors are coming from. £600 is £600 more than I get too, but I do not have anything like the training bill that my wife has to pay out from out pocket.

Edit: – Sorry it is not my intention to be coming across as defensive

Ah so now you are blaming the ‘people’ who work in the NHS. The NHS is constained by its size and funding. Only Government can influence those 2 things. Again the government has worked its magic on you to blame the NHS…

Stop being so defensive, no one’s blamed the NHS.

I don’t think anyone’s even said they think Dr’s are overpaid.

Perhaps a useful indicator of concern, my wife has recently started doing extra private GP work in Edinburgh. A hassle for travel, uses valuable family and study time (she is always doing another diploma or degree) and not great money by GP standards. She is doing this though as she is so concerned about the way the government are treating the NHS that she feels the need to build up private connections and to get in there before a mad rush if the whole NHS system does go belly up.

Well sounds like her boss considers there to be no benefit to the NHS for her to be off presenting papers instead of being in the office.

That would be her boss, that she authored the paper with, who is also going to the conference and wants her to go too?

Producing research papers, presenting them, getting them published etc is a required part of the training towards becoming a consultant. i.e. it is part of her job.

Unfortunately it is also a part that they often have to do in “free time” and at their own expense.

Normally private companies only let you present because it is good PR.

The poster for it has the Trust and university logos on it – nice and big.

It’s good PR.

£600 more than I get and yet I’m expected to keep up to date.

Are you required to progress through the ranks towards a consultant/management position? Is your progress closely monitored? Do your colleagues need to sign off your competencies? Do you have regular interviews with an educational supervisor? Do you need to attend a set number of training sessions every year? And give some too? Are you regularly examined and certified?

Why so defensive about NHS staff

Because I’m married to one and friends with many more, and I can see how much they are shat on.

[Quote]Are you required to progress through the ranks towards a consultant/management position? Is your progress closely monitored? Do your colleagues need to sign off your competencies? Do you have regular interviews with an educational supervisor? Do you need to attend a set number of training sessions every year? And give some too? Are you regularly examined and certified?[/quote]

Yup, same in most branches of engineering.

Re: conferences

If you want a job in a competitive specialty you need to present at international meetings. It is common to have to self fund this.

Professional subscriptions and indemnity are 2k and up a year and most courses, many of which will be self funded 800 quid and up.

Other professions prob have similar but wih six years of fees, reduced pension, proposed pay cuts, ever increasing work intensity medicine is going to struggle to attract the best before long.

Most day to day ward work is done by ‘juniors’. As are many clinics and operating lists.

Still a good career and we are lucky but pay is awful. I got paid a better salary in 2002 first year post grad than out juniors do now. Admittedly I also worked 75hours/week for it.

Yup, same in most branches of engineering.

Not in Software Engineering! 😀

(I accept that’s not real engineering though)

That would be her boss, that she authored the paper with, who is also going to the conference and wants her to go too?

Well if there is only money for one then that’s it. I’ve been on both the winning and loosing end of this in the past where I’ve been to conferences as the only rep of an institution or missed out for someone else to go.

Unfortunately it is also a part that they often have to do in “free time”

Outside of working in a Uni I suspect this is the case for the majority of industries.

Look being a doctor is a hard job and always will be. And of course when conditions change people moan and grumble it’s human nature. However, I’m struggling to see through the fog and haze where the really problems with this change of contract come from.

FunkyDunc – i’ve had the chat with him with regards to what his plans are long term. he knows that working as a locum is a license to print money for him…he earns in 3 months, the same amount it takes me 12 months to earn!!
his reasoning is that he enjoys meeting different patients from different walks of life and being the “new set of eyes” looking into their medical illnesses etc.
he keeps all of his training and qualifications up to date.
working a 4 day week has its advantages for him as it means he can spend more time at home or studying (when needed).
but there has to come a point when he realises that working away from home for 4 days and staying there isnt giving him the quality time he would get if he was attached to a GP practice…he’s not short of offers in this respect. his daughter turned 1 yesterday and i doubt he would want to spend any more time away from her…i give him another year before he settles into a role at a local GP practice.

Well if there is only money for one then that’s it.

Nope. There is no money. He has to pay for himself too.

Outside of working in a Uni I suspect this is the case for the majority of industries.

Bollocks. What other industries require you to produce journal-quality research for your company in your spare time without being paid?

And then expect you to promote your company and research, in your own time, with your own money?

At the same time as holding down a safety-critical full time job which changes to a different office every six months?

Certainly not my industry.

I’m struggling to see through the fog and haze where the really problems with this change of contract come from.

Would you be upset if someone told you to work more, for 30% cut in pay, and said you were unreasonable for protesting?

How about if they had a monopoly and were the only employer in the country?

Bollocks. What other industries require you to produce journal-quality research for your company in your spare time without being paid?

Seriously?

Engineering (just not apparently software 😛 )

Do you actually believe that medicine is the only career with these requirements?

It’s even written into my contract that anything i produce in my own time is owned by the company, even if i asked them for funding and they declined as they didn’t deem it worthwhile.

The proposed changes arent right/fair. But equally I’ve not had a pay rise since late 2013.

Yup, same in most branches of engineering.

Not in Telecoms, not presented a paper (nor written one) in years. Only did them in the early years as it looked good on the CV, now can’t be arsed. Even stopped bothering with Patents as I have enough for the CV and they’re a load of extra hassle…

Have we talked about the cost of indemnity yet? 😈

Do you actually believe that medicine is the only career with these requirements?

No, but I believe it’s not “the case for the majority of industries”.

But I’ll ask the Food Industry guy behind the counter at the cafe just to make sure 😆

It’s even written into my contract that anything i produce in my own time is owned by the company

Same here. But I’m not then required by the company to do academic research for them in my own time – because I’d want paid for that!

However, I’m struggling to see through the fog and haze where the really problems with this change of contract come from.

Because when my wife signed her contract 7 years ago there were certain T&C’s. The pay and career progression that she signed up for is not now what she is getting, and will get considerably worse.

Again as said earlier. If you want to attract acdemic elite to a profession, you can not treat them like shit and pay them salaries that are not competitive.

If you do go down that route you attract mediocre candidates and get mediocre results.

I earn just over the average UK salary, so I guess I am Mr Average in that way. I could not even begin to work the hours and retain the knowledge that my wife has to.

If you do go down that route you attract mediocre candidates and get mediocre results.

The Tories wish to recast the NHS in their own image!

But I’ll ask the Food Industry guy behind the counter at the cafe just to make sure

I didn’t mean that, I meant in comparable type roles in other industries, of course the guy in the supermarket doesn’t. However, I’m talking consultancy type jobs filled primarily by people who went to top Uni’s.

Based on a look around within 2 years you’ll be on £30k and possibly more for overtime, is that really that bad pay for only 2 years experience? I don’t see how career progression changes with the new contract. The only significant change is around the hours.

Based on a look around within 2 years you’ll be on £30k and possibly more for overtime, is that really that bad pay for only 2 years experience?

It’s okay but not fantastic – as someone pointed out earlier graduates training as managers at Aldi start on up to £42k!

But the point isn’t the money (depsite the thread title) it is that they are being de-valued and the ones doing the toughest jobs with the most unsociable hours are now being asked to do even more for a lot less money.

In short the government has realised that the only way they can get this ridiculous “24/7 NHS” idea to work is if they pay everyone a lot less and stop rewarding those prepared to work the unsociable hours.

It’s easy to pick an outlier in Aldi (plus I bet there are some hidden downsides in the small print), try however Tesco, JL, Boots, McDs, Co-op and M&S who all offer a more realistic region of £21 – 27k.

I don’t think the public do see 24/7 NHS as a ridiculous idea, people get ill 24/7, and people under the current system are having to take leave for straight forward GP visits

Seriously?

Engineering (just not apparently software

I’ve been working 20 years in engineering and never been required to produce an academic paper. If I had and had to present it at a conference I’d be expecting it to be paid for.

Dragon are you seriously suggesting that someone with the academic ability to run a McDonalds could make a doctor too? Doctors are the equivalent of the MD/CEO of McDonalds. Generally if you don’t go to med school you become a lawyer, city bod, accountant etc. Those types of job generally pay £250k +

In terms of 24/7 service, I think all would agree it’s a good thing, but how do you want to finance it? My wife isn’t bothered about working at the weekend so long as she gets paid for it, and gets time off in the week. But that’s not what is currently being offered.

Doctors are the equivalent of the MD/CEO of McDonalds.

You reckon?

How many CEOs of Billion $ multi-nationals are there and how many GPs…..

Dragon are you seriously suggesting that someone with the academic ability to run a McDonalds could make a doctor too? Doctors are the equivalent of the MD/CEO of McDonalds.

Err, no. Don’t you know any doctors? Most are as useless as anyone else.

dragon – Member

I don’t think the public do see 24/7 NHS as a ridiculous idea

It isn’t. That’s why we already have a 24/7 NHS. But routine things should run on routine timings. Complaining that you have to take time off when you want to work, and insisting that other people should have to work when you don’t want to, for no other reason than your convenience is just selfish frankly.

If you want to speak to me at my work, you need to do it while I’m open. Life is so hard.

But hey, the NHS already does that too, with many surgeries providing early and late openings, weekends, etc, not to mention minor injuries clinics and the like.

dragon – Member
I don’t think the public do see 24/7 NHS as a ridiculous idea

Of course they don’t, but they’re not too keen on paying for it.

Or would you welcome a massive hike in income tax just so you can get your ingrowing toenail seen to at 3am?

Even if we could afford it (which we can’t) most hospitals and surgeries are short staffed on the current opening times. Where are all the extra doctors, surgeons, nurses, technicians, porters, social workers, etc etc going to come from?

people get ill 24/7

They do, and those people can use the existing 24/7 cover like NHS24, walk-in centres, minor injuries clinics, out-of-hours GP on-call, evening and weekend GP clinics, and for really serious stuff, A&E.

I always fail to understand. How is any of this a surprise ??

The Tories are completely 100% committed to destroying the NHS.
Hunt’s even written books about it FFS. It’s the last bit of socialism left and they want it gone ASAP & it’s all going to plan nicely

Doctor’s striking or leaving is just grist for their mill.

PFI, Agency Staff and £11.3 Billion vapourware systems.. The NHS has no chance….