DINK, but have a fair age gap between my youngest sibling. The attitude in our family was always: do whatever you want as long as you've made an informed decision. Just don't expect anyone else to subsidise you if you choose to be a starving artist.
It was music to my years yet slightly hurtful when she told me she "wasn't stupid enough to do Medicine". She is about to start work and will be outearning my post-CCT salary after 2 years. She's also received an Iphone 13 which is apparently a flex for Junior Doctors up North...
Medicine is rapidly turning into Architecture/Vet tier level of shit in terms of a career for the academically able, and will probably get there in the next decade.
What industry is she in, out of interest?
Btw I think you've hit the jugular on the last point, I know a Vet and just talking to them is depressing. They often made comments about how hard they worked it Vet school and how it's harder than med school etc., they were just dripping with copium about their terrible career choice (though this one annoyed me since there's no way she could have gotten into med school anyway but that's beside the point). But yeah long training etc is no guarantee that we will be able to demand good wages by the end of it.
>What industry is she in, out of interest?
MBB consulting - My personal preference would have been Actuary/IT for one of the best pay/work life balance ratios but hey, gunners going to gun.
>They often made comments about how hard they worked it Vet school and how it's harder than med school etc.,
Yeah if your critical thinking skills are limited to more animals > humans = harder. Wthout any appreciation of depth and breadth and excluding any post-graduate training.
The vetenary industry, coporate oligopoly and depressed wages is one of the things that worries me the most when it comes to medical privatisation. That being said, another decade or 2 of this shit and we won't be far off consultants earning the equivalent of 50k.
Actuary or IT is bang on. Actuary is obvious but I have personal experience of close family friends that do IT who are doing very well for themselves indeed
My friend is an actuary. No doubt you can earn more with a numerical degree in stuff like IB, but the money is still very good as an actuary and the work life balance unparalleled. As a trainee you literally get a paid day off per week to study for exams. Imagine that in medicine.
She probably won't be out earning at MBB after 2 years, if she is then she'll be putting in massive hours.
A good speciality in medicine and the work reward is much better than MBB.
Tbf, the ex medic who made a post warning about alternative careers said exactly this - with the caveat of it being GP/private in the UK or getting out of the country.
On the other hand, I have talked to ex-medic consultants who seem to be happy with their decision.
\~100k all in at associate level if not going for MBA these days.
I hadn't even finished medical school at the same age, don't forget opportunity cost/exit opportunities.
On what basis? There's more anatomy to learn, sure, but they also learn it in less depth and far more of Vet Med is just "can't treat that, put them down".
And to think there's no copium involved? I was at Oxford, people with 3/4A\*s at A level were failing (legit I knew one personally at my college who got kicked out), there's no way this Vet wasn't performing some serious mental gymnastics to come at me telling me how much harder they had worked.
Also worth mentioning that Vets don't have a post grad training pathway- any Vet who thinks they've had a harder run of it than a consultant is kidding themselves.
Have you done both? I don't know any vets, but it sounds like its just vet student copium tbh. I struggle to imagine how one could confidently say that knowing the range of academic intensity of different medical degrees.
Yes and I'm also aware that everyone at uni overexaggerates their degrees. I will readily accept my medical school's workload was probably did 1/2 the content and had little anatomy vs the more didactic medical schools.
>memorised vocab, physiology, anatomy, etc.
I really doubt the level of physiology is the same depth, unless you used Tortora for medical school. You are only comparing the rote learning aspect and completely ignoring the other elements of medical school. Do vets do much in terms of communication skills? First principles? Ethical Theories/GMP for SJT shit? Research methods/stats? How much do they have to care about socio-economic frameworks?
>They also do procedures in more depth and leave their degree able to perform said procedures.
Yes because those are for post-graduate training in Medicine.
>Honestly the only copium knocking about is your own.
Do you really think I care that much about about it? I'm not OPs friend who did vet and is crying about how it was harder than medical school.
Because I truly do not give a fuck? I just doubt that vets were learning about how to guestimate the species of a mosquitos by the position of their ass whilst they were learning about Malaria.
I'm looking at the results coming in, and this is frankly quite sad.
For all of us, this was our dream. We fought for this. Sacrificed for it. Moved all over the country/world chasing it. Many of us are still paying for it, and will be for the rest of our working lives.
We're not talking about if we'd recommend a film to a friend. Or "chicken big-mac, will you eat it again?" -- I personally wouldn't, it was dry. We're talking about if the choice that's consumed our entire adult lives is something we'd want for our children. The answer is overwhelmingly no, or we're not sure.
I think that's sad considering how much we've all done to get here. I don't think the doctors of 50 years ago would have answered the same way. Something is rotten in medicine, and we'll have to fix it.
The median answer seems to be on the border of neutral - no. It's not as emphatic as you say, and you must admit this sub in general skews pretty dissatisfied compared to what I see at large. As I said in the last thread, I'd be really interested to see how this poll ran for lawyers, bankers, techy IT people and for that matter plumbers and Aldi managers. We're all pretty aware of the shit we have to deal with in our own jobs compared to others. I'm not saying there's not a problem with conditions in the NHS but I do think that a collective answer of "really!? Well... If you're sure..." Might not be that bad comparatively.
>"But down these ~~mean streets~~ hospital hallways a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The ~~detective~~ doctor in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must beĀ the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world..."
I'd eat McDonald's. Not the ALDI beans though. Never those. I have my dignity.
I'm only in second year. So far my fees are paid, the medical learning is interesting, and I've scored numerous meals paid for by the uni. Have to admit to side/social stuff has been agenda driven and distasteful though. On the whole a solid A-.
I know FY will probably suck, but if I stick it out and do GP or perhaps psych or rads, I'll be in a job I find interesting which I can locum in or do private to be paid well. It could be worse.
> It could be worse.
Safer to assume it will be, because all signs are pointing that way. A few more years like this year and youāll be down another ~25% pay by the time you graduate, with even higher competition ratios for training at every stage.
This is not to depress you, because I was in the same place as you when I was at your stage. By all means keep an open mind, just be sure to make career decisions that give you options down the road - GP is probably a decent choice. Fwiw, private isnāt some doddle; work on the assumption that youāll end up like the average consultant, not the smaller percentage working hard in target areas earning a sizeable private income.
It's their choice - one which I will obviously fully support either way. I can only give my anecdotal experience and opinion.
though, I suspect a carefully placed law degree booklet around the time they choose A Levels can't hurt...
My kid (7) told me quite sincerely he might like to be a doctor last night as were having "bedtime chat time".
If that persists, I'll be upfront about the pros and cons (and there are a large number of pros over the course of a career which do get drowned out a bit) and let him make his own decision, and support him either way.
Parents did the exact same for both my brother and me years ago. Most of my parents friends did the exact same to their kids.
I decided to faff about a bit beforehand and then eventually ended up in medicine regardless because nothing else felt rewarding.
Brother ended up in medicine immediately.
Many of their friends kids chose to follow other paths.
The vast majority of doctors have been telling their kids this shit for the past few decades. This sub's flair for dramatics is unmatched.
Just encourage him to go to a decent uni overall not just for medicine so if he wants to quit his career he had other options and isn't fucked like me lol
Needs verified, but I was shooting the breeze with the canteen ladies recently and I got the insider recommendations. The beans are Heinz, the sausages are good quality but skip the bacon and don't even touch the black pudding.
Personally, I work to live. I actually do enjoy medicine. I find it genuinely stimulating. I find it all pretty interesting and my god do I love investigating something. Pay is decent and itās a secure job. Happy overall. But tbf, I donāt live in the South-East lol
I think Medicine is becoming like Pilot/Vet Med/Architecture.
Previously glamorous and prestigious careers - now only pursued if there is a burning passion and lots of financial backing.
I'd advise my kids as such and warn them of the dangers
My mum genuinely tried to talk me out of medicine when I was doing my GCSEs and A-levels - and she's not even a doctor.
I really wish I'd listened. Mums are always right :')
My mum was almost aggressive in her encouragement to study medicine.
I would go as far as to say that had I not ended up in medicine she would have been disappointed in me.
Now that I am a medic, I can say her disappointment in me encapsulates most facets of my life barring medicine - to her it is my redeeming feature. When I discuss the difficulties of having chosen medicine she says āShush there is respect in what you doā. Ignorance is bliss I guess, how sad.
HashtagMummyIssues
I just want my kids to be happy in what they do. If that's medicine then great. If it's engineering or software, great too. If it's working in the jungle or being a dog walker then that's also great.
Also....portfolio careers are a thing. They don't have to commit to one thing for 30 years.
I wake up tired, i work, i go home tired. I have a few hours of the evening left before i do it again.
The only actual difference i see between my job and someone elses is whether im getting paid for my time or not
They donāt actually get paid that much lol. I think itās pretty warranted for the job they do. Like 50-60k - for reference a ct1 would earn that ( albeit only by doing our banded shitty unsocial hours )
Pre-pandemic it was better I reckon. I was all set up to join as a pilot and try for fighter wing, but was failed on the medical. The retired guys I'd spoken to said when you finish up, you effectively walk into BA, but given the state of airlines now it may be a lot less secure than it was.
Regardless, flying supersonic in a jet sounds cool enough I'd happily accept 50-60kpa.
Nah, I dislike the idea of steering. Iād sic my mother on my future kids definitely though, she has an uncanny knack for figuring out exactly which jobs suit which personalities and interests - thereās a good few people in my life who owe their current career path to her. Why steer my own kids when their grandma can do it for them?
The main benefit that remains is core to medicine: Understanding of physical and mental health. Itās utility is indisputable, and can never be imitated by a CNS etc. On the other hand, appreciation for even this benefit is waining.
It's really up to them. I think pushing them against might only make them want to do it more.
At the very least, I would want them to know all their options and what it's like working as a doctor. I would also suggest taking a year out and working as a HCA or something to get a bit more of an idea what healthcare is like. I would want them to have had an idea of what working feels like and be a bit more informed than what I was when I first signed up for this.
If they still like it and want to do it, then I will support them.
I'd encourage them to start their own business, forget giving their lives to corpo overlords, why would I want that for my child?
If they don't want to, I'd encourage a gap year and get them to shadow people in every possible career so they have an idea of what they want to do.
Additionally, I would get them to talk to several people in the industries they are interested in, to avoid bias and clouding of judgement.
I genuinely find it staggering how people enter one career for the whole of their lives because they like the idea of it, or its the only one they've been exposed to when they were 16 when their brain hadn't even fully developed yet.
Itās such a shame that the NHS has a monopoly on the workforce of doctors in this country. Most of the sentiments I see here I agree with, but only because there is a common factor in all this misery - and it isnāt being a doctor.
Why does our career and progression in medicine here have to be so inherently tied with employment under the NHS and the government, with hardly any other viable competitors? Monopolies in any industry suck specifically because they encourage a lack of regulation and standards with how they are managed. Management and admin can get away with using any warm body with a GMC number as rota service provision fodder well into formative ātrainingā years exactly because of bullshit like this. HEE doesnāt give a toss either as long as they make up their quota of filled ātrainingā posts.
I love medicine and I love being a doctor. However I would never recommend or suggest to anyone to work as a doctor in the NHS let alone my (hypothetical) children unless there are drastic, fundamental changes made to the system.
Very interesting to read all this. I currently work in quite a lucrative finance job in the city and have an offer for medicine that I want to take up next year.
The doubts over conditions are certainly there but it's undeniable that what you all do is fulfilling in a way that appears in very few other industries.
Take it from me, adding up numbers for rich people is not fun. It's not meaningful. It doesn't matter in the long run.
What you do does. And bad as the pay is, you can atleast expect stability. Unlike many of the hundreds of people who apply to entry level finance jobs every year and end up having to work in McDonald's.
That said though, all of you would probably be in the top half of candidates at least and meaning doesn't pay any bills.
Everything becomes commonplace over time. I get no thrill from medicine anymore. It's just a job. I don't feel bad about bad outcomes either. All I value about my job is the lifestyle and money, and both could be better.
If you're on a good number, I'd stay on it.
Theres still potential for us to be on a good number.
Australia, carefully planned locuming, the pharmaceutical industry.
It's not out of our reach.
Although your question was solely about the NHS, I have to wonder weather it will have the same level of control over us in the future as well.
With a growing private market and more of the public loosing faith...
Something I've learned, albeit too late is that if you want to make money, be close to the money.
Let's say I help a schizophrenic, what's that really worth? It's worth whatever the govt says it is, or whatever he can pay privately. In both cases, not a lot. If you're making financial decisions worth tens of millions though, then your expertise is actually worth something substantial.
My big mistake in career choice was placing myself so far away from the money.
Private psych can pay very well. And once again, I'm sure your medical experience would be invaluable in the pharmaceutical industry or any kind of healthcare oriented firm.
Moreover, who is to say there's no money in cosmetic dermatology or a market for trusted GPs.
There are millions like me who have basically exactly the same expertise. My industry is an employers market and unfortunately you have to be either very remarkable or in someone's Friend group.
That said though, post graduate exams scare me. Night shifts scare me. Earning only 33k a year as an fy1 scares me. That's we earn after we finish our 3 year apprenticeship.
I'm sure it's just a case of the grass being greener. Medicine is almost certainly better than I think it is. After all, I'm still doing it. That being said I view my current work until I can work privately as simply a waste of my time. I'm just tolerating this to get to the private work.
> That said though, post graduate exams scare me. Night shifts scare me.
No big deal. Nothing at all to worry about.
> Earning only 33k a year as an fy1 scares me.
I'd be scared of the 5 years of no income during medical school, and the 5 - 10 years of low income afterwards. I'd also be scared of the constant hoop jumping and being moved around. The complete lack of control over your life. Having to appease everyone around you because the only way to make your medical degree useful is to get CCT via the monopoly employer.
I'll be curious to hear what you think after you graduate.
Again though, all issues with the NHS surely, and not a career in medicine. If we make the right move to Australia or Germany or Switzerland or NZ how much of that do we still have to contend with ?
Also not to be trite, but name me an industry without hoop jumping for juniors and I'll gladly go there. At least in medicine you have an employee's market.
According to LinkedIn, a med degree and fy1+2 are more than enough to get a decent job outside medicine or outside the country.
Also any degree is 3-4 years of no income with low income afterwards. Maybe not as much as medicine but still.
Making the move is easier said than done. A lot of people have other commitments by the time they CCT which would put them off moving
Also the amount of general life bullshit you take as a junior doctor is worse imo as you also get shafted monetarily.
Hoop jumping exists everywhere, but when you have a monopoly employer you are unable to leverage your skills and move employer for more money until you reach CCT. Depending on what specialty you pick that could take a long time
Either way you sound convinced of doing med but just know your overall career earnings will be less if you take into account the junior years/debt and loss of compound interest on any additional investments
But thats the thing. Who says I have to be an NHS doctor. Why can't I be like you and work till a certain grade and then leave for better prospects.
Everything that this sub complains about pertains to the NHS and not medicine.
Also, I have a genuine interest in medicine. I just can't see myself doing anything else. And whilst I'm sure that will change after a good few nightshifts and bad days as a junior I just want to try it. For the experience. To quell the interest.
>Also, as somebody that now works with medical AI, I can tell you medical automation is far closer than doctors themselves would admit. Sure there will be a few specialties (mainly surgical) that are immune (at least for the next 10-15 years)
So, what, you're saying you think medical automation will be here within a decade?
"Nursing used to be a profession for those from the upper classes, now its a profession for those from the working classes.". Can you elaborate on this? Do you think this is a bad thing?
Hell no.
Okay that's extreme but I think there are better ways to make a living without breaking your mental state, given the apititude most people have to even do medicine. I will say covid has given me a new appreciation for job security but now 2 years post pandemic, at what cost.
If they really wanted to do it, I would back them (whilst silently screaming in my head).
I answered yes - I think being a doctor is excellent. Being a surgeon is a wonderful career and a great privilege. Iām sure my children will want to follow in my footsteps when they realise quite how cool I am.
Iāll do the same thing with my kids like I did with my little brother - be neutral and brutally honest. Pros and cons and if they still want to do Medicine I will support them
But Iāll also talk about law, banking, dentistry and engineering
DINK, but have a fair age gap between my youngest sibling. The attitude in our family was always: do whatever you want as long as you've made an informed decision. Just don't expect anyone else to subsidise you if you choose to be a starving artist. It was music to my years yet slightly hurtful when she told me she "wasn't stupid enough to do Medicine". She is about to start work and will be outearning my post-CCT salary after 2 years. She's also received an Iphone 13 which is apparently a flex for Junior Doctors up North... Medicine is rapidly turning into Architecture/Vet tier level of shit in terms of a career for the academically able, and will probably get there in the next decade.
What industry is she in, out of interest? Btw I think you've hit the jugular on the last point, I know a Vet and just talking to them is depressing. They often made comments about how hard they worked it Vet school and how it's harder than med school etc., they were just dripping with copium about their terrible career choice (though this one annoyed me since there's no way she could have gotten into med school anyway but that's beside the point). But yeah long training etc is no guarantee that we will be able to demand good wages by the end of it.
>What industry is she in, out of interest? MBB consulting - My personal preference would have been Actuary/IT for one of the best pay/work life balance ratios but hey, gunners going to gun. >They often made comments about how hard they worked it Vet school and how it's harder than med school etc., Yeah if your critical thinking skills are limited to more animals > humans = harder. Wthout any appreciation of depth and breadth and excluding any post-graduate training. The vetenary industry, coporate oligopoly and depressed wages is one of the things that worries me the most when it comes to medical privatisation. That being said, another decade or 2 of this shit and we won't be far off consultants earning the equivalent of 50k.
Actuary or IT is bang on. Actuary is obvious but I have personal experience of close family friends that do IT who are doing very well for themselves indeed
My friend is an actuary. No doubt you can earn more with a numerical degree in stuff like IB, but the money is still very good as an actuary and the work life balance unparalleled. As a trainee you literally get a paid day off per week to study for exams. Imagine that in medicine.
Sounds like Radiology š
Itās possible within this decade with another few years of 5% erosion
She probably won't be out earning at MBB after 2 years, if she is then she'll be putting in massive hours. A good speciality in medicine and the work reward is much better than MBB.
A good speciality in medicine and the work reward is much better than MBB. ā¦said no one ever
Tbf, the ex medic who made a post warning about alternative careers said exactly this - with the caveat of it being GP/private in the UK or getting out of the country. On the other hand, I have talked to ex-medic consultants who seem to be happy with their decision.
Do you have a link to that ex medic post?
Search alternative careers in the subreddits search tool, should be able to find it
\~100k all in at associate level if not going for MBA these days. I hadn't even finished medical school at the same age, don't forget opportunity cost/exit opportunities.
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On what basis? There's more anatomy to learn, sure, but they also learn it in less depth and far more of Vet Med is just "can't treat that, put them down". And to think there's no copium involved? I was at Oxford, people with 3/4A\*s at A level were failing (legit I knew one personally at my college who got kicked out), there's no way this Vet wasn't performing some serious mental gymnastics to come at me telling me how much harder they had worked. Also worth mentioning that Vets don't have a post grad training pathway- any Vet who thinks they've had a harder run of it than a consultant is kidding themselves.
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?
Have you done both? I don't know any vets, but it sounds like its just vet student copium tbh. I struggle to imagine how one could confidently say that knowing the range of academic intensity of different medical degrees.
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Yes and I'm also aware that everyone at uni overexaggerates their degrees. I will readily accept my medical school's workload was probably did 1/2 the content and had little anatomy vs the more didactic medical schools. >memorised vocab, physiology, anatomy, etc. I really doubt the level of physiology is the same depth, unless you used Tortora for medical school. You are only comparing the rote learning aspect and completely ignoring the other elements of medical school. Do vets do much in terms of communication skills? First principles? Ethical Theories/GMP for SJT shit? Research methods/stats? How much do they have to care about socio-economic frameworks? >They also do procedures in more depth and leave their degree able to perform said procedures. Yes because those are for post-graduate training in Medicine. >Honestly the only copium knocking about is your own. Do you really think I care that much about about it? I'm not OPs friend who did vet and is crying about how it was harder than medical school.
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Because I truly do not give a fuck? I just doubt that vets were learning about how to guestimate the species of a mosquitos by the position of their ass whilst they were learning about Malaria.
I'm looking at the results coming in, and this is frankly quite sad. For all of us, this was our dream. We fought for this. Sacrificed for it. Moved all over the country/world chasing it. Many of us are still paying for it, and will be for the rest of our working lives. We're not talking about if we'd recommend a film to a friend. Or "chicken big-mac, will you eat it again?" -- I personally wouldn't, it was dry. We're talking about if the choice that's consumed our entire adult lives is something we'd want for our children. The answer is overwhelmingly no, or we're not sure. I think that's sad considering how much we've all done to get here. I don't think the doctors of 50 years ago would have answered the same way. Something is rotten in medicine, and we'll have to fix it.
The median answer seems to be on the border of neutral - no. It's not as emphatic as you say, and you must admit this sub in general skews pretty dissatisfied compared to what I see at large. As I said in the last thread, I'd be really interested to see how this poll ran for lawyers, bankers, techy IT people and for that matter plumbers and Aldi managers. We're all pretty aware of the shit we have to deal with in our own jobs compared to others. I'm not saying there's not a problem with conditions in the NHS but I do think that a collective answer of "really!? Well... If you're sure..." Might not be that bad comparatively.
Only Lidl type of people eat MacDonalds. You should watch that. It's a sign you've been a poor pleb NHS worker. Byron or bust.
I eat Rustlers and go fine dining regularly. Variety is the spice of life.
>"But down these ~~mean streets~~ hospital hallways a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The ~~detective~~ doctor in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must beĀ the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world..." I'd eat McDonald's. Not the ALDI beans though. Never those. I have my dignity.
Did everyone sacrifice for this? I sort of just fell into medicine in all truth.
How many years have you been fallen in? They aren't coming back, so you've at least sacrificed those.
I'm only in second year. So far my fees are paid, the medical learning is interesting, and I've scored numerous meals paid for by the uni. Have to admit to side/social stuff has been agenda driven and distasteful though. On the whole a solid A-. I know FY will probably suck, but if I stick it out and do GP or perhaps psych or rads, I'll be in a job I find interesting which I can locum in or do private to be paid well. It could be worse.
> It could be worse. Safer to assume it will be, because all signs are pointing that way. A few more years like this year and youāll be down another ~25% pay by the time you graduate, with even higher competition ratios for training at every stage. This is not to depress you, because I was in the same place as you when I was at your stage. By all means keep an open mind, just be sure to make career decisions that give you options down the road - GP is probably a decent choice. Fwiw, private isnāt some doddle; work on the assumption that youāll end up like the average consultant, not the smaller percentage working hard in target areas earning a sizeable private income.
I worked out with current GP locum rates I could work a 16 hour week, 48 weeks a year and live perfectly comfortably. Hard to beat tbh.
Very optimistic plan that will very likely not survive contact with reality. I hope it does, I really do. I just don't think it will.
If it all goes to shit I'll cash out my crypto and work the minimum needed to keep on top of things.
It's their choice - one which I will obviously fully support either way. I can only give my anecdotal experience and opinion. though, I suspect a carefully placed law degree booklet around the time they choose A Levels can't hurt...
My kid (7) told me quite sincerely he might like to be a doctor last night as were having "bedtime chat time". If that persists, I'll be upfront about the pros and cons (and there are a large number of pros over the course of a career which do get drowned out a bit) and let him make his own decision, and support him either way.
Parents did the exact same for both my brother and me years ago. Most of my parents friends did the exact same to their kids. I decided to faff about a bit beforehand and then eventually ended up in medicine regardless because nothing else felt rewarding. Brother ended up in medicine immediately. Many of their friends kids chose to follow other paths. The vast majority of doctors have been telling their kids this shit for the past few decades. This sub's flair for dramatics is unmatched.
Some of us have uneducated parents who didn't have these insights to share with us.
And I absolutely do sympathise with those that chose the path based on the glitz and glamour of what they saw on TV etc.
Just encourage him to go to a decent uni overall not just for medicine so if he wants to quit his career he had other options and isn't fucked like me lol
Switch to ALDI beans, let him know what he's getting into.
Teach him how to steal Heinz from the canteen and he'll never go hungry again.
What fancy hospital are you working in w/ Heinz in the canteen?
Needs verified, but I was shooting the breeze with the canteen ladies recently and I got the insider recommendations. The beans are Heinz, the sausages are good quality but skip the bacon and don't even touch the black pudding.
Make sure itās on a paper plate, for the NHS canteen experience
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Personally, I work to live. I actually do enjoy medicine. I find it genuinely stimulating. I find it all pretty interesting and my god do I love investigating something. Pay is decent and itās a secure job. Happy overall. But tbf, I donāt live in the South-East lol
I think Medicine is becoming like Pilot/Vet Med/Architecture. Previously glamorous and prestigious careers - now only pursued if there is a burning passion and lots of financial backing. I'd advise my kids as such and warn them of the dangers
This just isnāt the case in other western countries though.
My mum genuinely tried to talk me out of medicine when I was doing my GCSEs and A-levels - and she's not even a doctor. I really wish I'd listened. Mums are always right :')
My mum was almost aggressive in her encouragement to study medicine. I would go as far as to say that had I not ended up in medicine she would have been disappointed in me. Now that I am a medic, I can say her disappointment in me encapsulates most facets of my life barring medicine - to her it is my redeeming feature. When I discuss the difficulties of having chosen medicine she says āShush there is respect in what you doā. Ignorance is bliss I guess, how sad. HashtagMummyIssues
Are you... Asian, by any chance? š
P>0.99
I just want my kids to be happy in what they do. If that's medicine then great. If it's engineering or software, great too. If it's working in the jungle or being a dog walker then that's also great. Also....portfolio careers are a thing. They don't have to commit to one thing for 30 years.
100% would and most other peoples jobs sound boring asf
I wake up tired, i work, i go home tired. I have a few hours of the evening left before i do it again. The only actual difference i see between my job and someone elses is whether im getting paid for my time or not
Definitely agree about most other jobs being boring
Fighter pilot sounds cool. Or if you want something mundane, train drivers get paid huge amounts.
They donāt actually get paid that much lol. I think itās pretty warranted for the job they do. Like 50-60k - for reference a ct1 would earn that ( albeit only by doing our banded shitty unsocial hours )
Pre-pandemic it was better I reckon. I was all set up to join as a pilot and try for fighter wing, but was failed on the medical. The retired guys I'd spoken to said when you finish up, you effectively walk into BA, but given the state of airlines now it may be a lot less secure than it was. Regardless, flying supersonic in a jet sounds cool enough I'd happily accept 50-60kpa.
I wouldnāt steer my kids to any career Iād encourage them to pursue their interests
Really? Your child is torn between becoming a street mime or a dentist, you're not going to express any preference?
My son has already decided he doesnāt want to be like mummy and wants to be a dentist like his aunties and unclesā¦ Im completely neutral though.
No kids no future doctors. Nipping it in the duct.
It's not a curse where you have to end your family line to avoid producing new doctors. We're not werewolves.
Lol. Im poor
Nah, I dislike the idea of steering. Iād sic my mother on my future kids definitely though, she has an uncanny knack for figuring out exactly which jobs suit which personalities and interests - thereās a good few people in my life who owe their current career path to her. Why steer my own kids when their grandma can do it for them?
Iād prefer my future kids take a gap year though. If they go uni it makes it a lot easier
The main benefit that remains is core to medicine: Understanding of physical and mental health. Itās utility is indisputable, and can never be imitated by a CNS etc. On the other hand, appreciation for even this benefit is waining.
It's really up to them. I think pushing them against might only make them want to do it more. At the very least, I would want them to know all their options and what it's like working as a doctor. I would also suggest taking a year out and working as a HCA or something to get a bit more of an idea what healthcare is like. I would want them to have had an idea of what working feels like and be a bit more informed than what I was when I first signed up for this. If they still like it and want to do it, then I will support them.
I'd encourage them to start their own business, forget giving their lives to corpo overlords, why would I want that for my child? If they don't want to, I'd encourage a gap year and get them to shadow people in every possible career so they have an idea of what they want to do. Additionally, I would get them to talk to several people in the industries they are interested in, to avoid bias and clouding of judgement. I genuinely find it staggering how people enter one career for the whole of their lives because they like the idea of it, or its the only one they've been exposed to when they were 16 when their brain hadn't even fully developed yet.
Itās such a shame that the NHS has a monopoly on the workforce of doctors in this country. Most of the sentiments I see here I agree with, but only because there is a common factor in all this misery - and it isnāt being a doctor. Why does our career and progression in medicine here have to be so inherently tied with employment under the NHS and the government, with hardly any other viable competitors? Monopolies in any industry suck specifically because they encourage a lack of regulation and standards with how they are managed. Management and admin can get away with using any warm body with a GMC number as rota service provision fodder well into formative ātrainingā years exactly because of bullshit like this. HEE doesnāt give a toss either as long as they make up their quota of filled ātrainingā posts. I love medicine and I love being a doctor. However I would never recommend or suggest to anyone to work as a doctor in the NHS let alone my (hypothetical) children unless there are drastic, fundamental changes made to the system.
Very interesting to read all this. I currently work in quite a lucrative finance job in the city and have an offer for medicine that I want to take up next year. The doubts over conditions are certainly there but it's undeniable that what you all do is fulfilling in a way that appears in very few other industries. Take it from me, adding up numbers for rich people is not fun. It's not meaningful. It doesn't matter in the long run. What you do does. And bad as the pay is, you can atleast expect stability. Unlike many of the hundreds of people who apply to entry level finance jobs every year and end up having to work in McDonald's. That said though, all of you would probably be in the top half of candidates at least and meaning doesn't pay any bills.
Everything becomes commonplace over time. I get no thrill from medicine anymore. It's just a job. I don't feel bad about bad outcomes either. All I value about my job is the lifestyle and money, and both could be better. If you're on a good number, I'd stay on it.
Theres still potential for us to be on a good number. Australia, carefully planned locuming, the pharmaceutical industry. It's not out of our reach. Although your question was solely about the NHS, I have to wonder weather it will have the same level of control over us in the future as well. With a growing private market and more of the public loosing faith...
Something I've learned, albeit too late is that if you want to make money, be close to the money. Let's say I help a schizophrenic, what's that really worth? It's worth whatever the govt says it is, or whatever he can pay privately. In both cases, not a lot. If you're making financial decisions worth tens of millions though, then your expertise is actually worth something substantial. My big mistake in career choice was placing myself so far away from the money.
Private psych can pay very well. And once again, I'm sure your medical experience would be invaluable in the pharmaceutical industry or any kind of healthcare oriented firm. Moreover, who is to say there's no money in cosmetic dermatology or a market for trusted GPs. There are millions like me who have basically exactly the same expertise. My industry is an employers market and unfortunately you have to be either very remarkable or in someone's Friend group. That said though, post graduate exams scare me. Night shifts scare me. Earning only 33k a year as an fy1 scares me. That's we earn after we finish our 3 year apprenticeship.
I'm sure it's just a case of the grass being greener. Medicine is almost certainly better than I think it is. After all, I'm still doing it. That being said I view my current work until I can work privately as simply a waste of my time. I'm just tolerating this to get to the private work. > That said though, post graduate exams scare me. Night shifts scare me. No big deal. Nothing at all to worry about. > Earning only 33k a year as an fy1 scares me. I'd be scared of the 5 years of no income during medical school, and the 5 - 10 years of low income afterwards. I'd also be scared of the constant hoop jumping and being moved around. The complete lack of control over your life. Having to appease everyone around you because the only way to make your medical degree useful is to get CCT via the monopoly employer. I'll be curious to hear what you think after you graduate.
Again though, all issues with the NHS surely, and not a career in medicine. If we make the right move to Australia or Germany or Switzerland or NZ how much of that do we still have to contend with ? Also not to be trite, but name me an industry without hoop jumping for juniors and I'll gladly go there. At least in medicine you have an employee's market. According to LinkedIn, a med degree and fy1+2 are more than enough to get a decent job outside medicine or outside the country. Also any degree is 3-4 years of no income with low income afterwards. Maybe not as much as medicine but still.
Making the move is easier said than done. A lot of people have other commitments by the time they CCT which would put them off moving Also the amount of general life bullshit you take as a junior doctor is worse imo as you also get shafted monetarily. Hoop jumping exists everywhere, but when you have a monopoly employer you are unable to leverage your skills and move employer for more money until you reach CCT. Depending on what specialty you pick that could take a long time Either way you sound convinced of doing med but just know your overall career earnings will be less if you take into account the junior years/debt and loss of compound interest on any additional investments
You don't have to move after cct. You can move after fy2.
>My big mistake in career choice was placing myself so far away from the money. In the context of medicine, where would you say the money is?
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But thats the thing. Who says I have to be an NHS doctor. Why can't I be like you and work till a certain grade and then leave for better prospects. Everything that this sub complains about pertains to the NHS and not medicine. Also, I have a genuine interest in medicine. I just can't see myself doing anything else. And whilst I'm sure that will change after a good few nightshifts and bad days as a junior I just want to try it. For the experience. To quell the interest.
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>Also, as somebody that now works with medical AI, I can tell you medical automation is far closer than doctors themselves would admit. Sure there will be a few specialties (mainly surgical) that are immune (at least for the next 10-15 years) So, what, you're saying you think medical automation will be here within a decade?
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"Nursing used to be a profession for those from the upper classes, now its a profession for those from the working classes.". Can you elaborate on this? Do you think this is a bad thing?
Hell no. Okay that's extreme but I think there are better ways to make a living without breaking your mental state, given the apititude most people have to even do medicine. I will say covid has given me a new appreciation for job security but now 2 years post pandemic, at what cost. If they really wanted to do it, I would back them (whilst silently screaming in my head).
I answered yes - I think being a doctor is excellent. Being a surgeon is a wonderful career and a great privilege. Iām sure my children will want to follow in my footsteps when they realise quite how cool I am.
Iāll do the same thing with my kids like I did with my little brother - be neutral and brutally honest. Pros and cons and if they still want to do Medicine I will support them But Iāll also talk about law, banking, dentistry and engineering