Resident (Junior) Doctors vote to strike

When my late OH trained many moons ago he did not pay fees or maintenance for 2 of the 5 years. It would have been all 5 years if he had not received 3 years worth for a previous degree. He finished with no debt (because I went to work and paid his fees and kept him!).
Nurses and doctors should leave with no debt.
The biggest problem when first at work was being shunted around and about ad lib from job to job afterwards .... so unsettling.
I do know that my OH would not have gone on strike on moral grounds.
However I do have sympathy with junior doctors (many of whom are not the least bit junior, but highly experienced medics) ..... as long as the availability of jobs is so uncertain and pay not comparable with elsewhere it is reasonable for them to be dissatisfied. As to whether that justified dissatisfaction should be a good reason for striking I am less sure.
I have had lots of hospital admissions recently and the vast majority of the junior medics were people whose English was poor so I have to assume that they were born abroad. It is no good the government investing in UK doctor training and then giving the jobs to others.

However I do have sympathy with junior doctors (many of whom are not the least bit junior, but highly experienced medics) .....

Yes, the name is a misnomer for sure.

As to whether that justified dissatisfaction should be a good reason for striking I am less sure.

I think there is a case for Doctors being like the Police and Armed Forces with a "no strike" clause. They should be paid appropriately to reflect that. I also think there should be a scheme where their fees beyond the first 3 years should be paid by the taxpayer with a signed agreement that they will work within the NHS for a set number of years with any fees repaid with interest if they choose not to.

Cumbrianmale56

Allira

It is about choice not what we think 23 year olds should be doing.

I don't believe I said it wasn't?

I merely commented that, in my experience, I know of very few young people who marry in their early 20s, as so many of us did years ago.

I'm 57 and can think of some girls I went to school with who were married by the time they were 20. It was mostly girls who had no ambition to leave the area, were pushed by their mothers and grandmothers to marry young like they did, and it was nearly 40 years ago as well. However, even into the noughties, I worked with several girls in that age group who were living with partners before they were 20.
For me, I didn't want this and people who were going away to university or moving away to work by passed this and tended to want partners from away. All barring two very short lived relationships have been with women from outside the local area.

So your experience is different from my experience.

Fair enough.

Yes, the name is a misnomer for sure.

Yes, it certainly was.

Now known as Resident Doctors (whatever that means) but, if training places are not sorted out, they will be leaving to become residents in Australia.

Fortunately even if doctors work abroad, there’s still an obligation to repay the outstanding student loan. So from one point of view, the completely dedicated doctors from abroad I had recently were probably better than the reluctant UK trained cohort…. So it’s okay to make up the shortfall with doctors and surgeons who can cope with the salaries and working conditions we offer.

ronib

Fortunately even if doctors work abroad, there’s still an obligation to repay the outstanding student loan. So from one point of view, the completely dedicated doctors from abroad I had recently were probably better than the reluctant UK trained cohort…. So it’s okay to make up the shortfall with doctors and surgeons who can cope with the salaries and working conditions we offer.

But no obligation to work here which leaves us short which is why I'd like to see a system where there is a reward for staying here with the lack of fees in their later years of training. Maybe we could pay their loans for them as part of the pay settlement when they join the NHS for those later years.

This was from Wikipedia.

The term resident doctor currently incorporates the grades of foundation doctor, core trainee (in some specialties, such as surgery, medicine, and psychiatry), and specialty registrar. Before 2007, it included the grades of pre-registration house officer, senior house officer and specialist registrar. During this time, resident doctors will do postgraduate examinations to become members of a medical royal college relevant to the specialty in which they are training, for example membership of the Royal College of Physicians for doctors specialising in internal medicine, membership of the Royal College of Surgeons for doctors specialising in surgery or membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners for doctors specialising in family medicine. Doctors typically may be resident doctors for 8–20 years, and this may be extended by doing research towards a higher degree, for example a Doctor of Philosophy or Doctor of Medicine degree. In England there are around 71,000 resident doctors.

I don’t get your point ronib, because it’s clearly better to retain UK trained doctors than to be in a position where they leave the UK and we are having to examine, then employ doctors who are unfamiliar with the UK, particularly if English is not their first language?
Also, anybody who has a UK student loan is expected to repay it if they leave the UK in the repayment period, not just doctors?

I think it’s cheaper to import trained doctors from the rest of the world rather than write off student loans. Icanhandthemback The taxpayer is already paying around £230,000 to train each doctor. Enough is enough?

Casdon my point is that if UK doctors can’t hack the pay , working conditions and career progression, there’s still are willing trained and skilled doctors from overseas who are happy with less . My foreign surgeon and consultant spoke excellent English and were surprisingly caring.

It’s the implication that the doctors from overseas are better that I don’t understand ronib. Of course there are some exceptionally good doctors from overseas in the NHS, but equally some exceptionally good British doctors have left this country. We should be paying doctors at a rate equivalent to that offered by other first world nations.

Casdon Some doctors from overseas really seem to value their work in the NHS . They are not so money hungry perhaps as our home grown medics?

I can't help thinking of all the members of the armed forces who get moved around often with no say where to, and risk losing their lives. All for a pittance compared to doctors.

Isn’t that just another way of saying doctors from overseas are willing to work for less than the going rate?

Casdon The two consultants I met from Romania were managing just fine on their salaries because it gave them a reasonable standard of living as compared to Romania. Isn’t it all about expectation?

No ronib, it’s about paying UK doctors an equivalent rate to other equivalent countries so they remain here.

It’s the suddenness too of the planned strike. 25th July.
That segues nicely into the new cohort of doctors on rotation - new in different specialties the first week of August.

Scary times.

Best agree to disagree Casdon I don’t mind disgruntled people leaving for Australia.

Wes has a sniff of the right tactic… you want pay you can have more pay … but you are not having your pensions kept on the same footing.

ronib

Best agree to disagree Casdon I don’t mind disgruntled people leaving for Australia.

You don’t think doctors in the UK should be paid at a rate commensurate with other equivalent countries like Australia ronib. I’ve got the message.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

It’s the suddenness too of the planned strike. 25th July.
That segues nicely into the new cohort of doctors on rotation - new in different specialties the first week of August.

Scary times.

I think the junior doctors are going about this in completely the wrong way. In some ways changeover week is a good time, because the service is used to more senior doctors not taking leave during the week of the changeover as so many of the juniors take accrued leave before they start new jobs - but the lack of notice, and going straight into strike mode is going to engender no sympathy for their cause.

A reassuring point Casdon.

But yes, the BMA are not taking the public along with them this time round that’s for sure.

Although my own daughter is a doctor I don't support the current demand for such a large pay increase and I doubt my daughter does either. However, I do wish people understood the training that doctors do and it's clear from some of these posts, a lot don't. My daughter is a resident doctor, she qualified 9 years ago, during which time she did her 2 years as a foundation doctor, a year as an A&E doctor, 3 years on her part one specialist training, and is in her third year of her final training. She's a fellow of the Royal college of Anaesthetists having passed all the required exams (paying for training, trips to London to take exams, exam fees etc herself, none of this is cheap!) She has during this time been involved in training undergrad students, foundation level students, core and specialist trainees and recently refugee doctors trying to convert their foreign medical degrees. Every day she goes to work she is training someone junior to herself and sometimes she is being trained herself. It is part of the oath that doctors become trainers. The expression "See one, do one, teach one" is how docotrs develop their skills and develop the skills in others. When £200k is quoted as the cost of training doctors, who do you think does the training? It is doctors, doing it as part of their day job, constantly assessing other doctors competences and deciding whether they are competent to do something on their own or still need a guiding hand. They don't get paid extra for doing this, it is part of their job but it has a value that can be quantified ie £200k . If doctors leave they take that training resource with them. Many doctors coming from abroad have experienced completely different training experiences to UK doctors. They often have huge gaps in some areas but have specialised earlier so are very knowledgeable in other areas. We need UK doctors to help plug those gaps and they also can benefit from working with foreign doctors, it is not completely one way traffic.
The moral question is should we be taking foreign doctors away from their own countries that have educated them at a great cost to that country and should we give scarce training places to foreign doctors leaving UK doctors without the means of continuing their education? For me the answer to both questions is "no".
I hope the BMA drop this threat of a strike and settle for a more reasonable pay increase. We do not pay our doctors as much as we should and frankly their working conditions and allocation of training posts is disgraceful but we need to recognise the NHS is not a bottomless pit of money.

Very wise comments foxie48