Its a good salary compared to most jobs, but doctors in the UK are ridiculously underpaid. It’s a tough job and it’s no wonder many are looking for the exit.
Can’t really blame them, far better options for high achieving individuals like this both in terms of financial reward and work life balance.
Problem is that for every doctor that does leave it increases the workload for those remaining, which leads to more burnout and poor work life balance. This then means they start to explore other options and then leave themselves.
I’m not sure if there is a more up to date version of this, but I think this gives a better comparison.
I’ve been hearing this from 20 years ago. No one is irreplaceable. If they want to leave let them leave.
Who out there hasn’t considered leaving their job? I assumed this would be 100 percent for all professions.
In the UK, you can get paid more to move `<div>`’s around on a webpage than you can for healing/saving people’s lives. It’s wild.
This tracks with my friendship group.
Of those I know who entered Surgical training in 2020, I’d say about a quarter have left that, and half of them have left medicine altogether.
Was having a chat with a couple the other day. They’re both feeling trapped and disillusioned. They want to consider other specialties or countries. But they also want to figure out what the hell they could do outside of medicine.
The NHS is very good at creating a great uncertainty about how doctors can survive outside it, to be fair. It’s much more a stick than a carrot approach. It’s hiring processes and its training are very different to anything else, and knowing how to take out an appendix doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve got much skills to offer to many beyond perhaps a seamstress.
Yep chimes with my family and friends.
Sister became a doctor, did 3-4ys in the NHS and has emigrated to NZ. All of her coursemates are in NZ too.
She doesn’t want to come back: worse pay, worse conditions. I don’t blame her.
I’ve already left the NHS, a few of my friends have too and a number of people I know of have left to Australia/NZ
Slice the “social protection” budget in half, restrict public care access to palliative/hospice for those aged 70 and over and erase doctor’s responsibilities relating to any mental health condition not serious enough to warrant legal sectioning. Use part of the saved money to increase doctors salaries to competitive levels. These measures are harsh, but consider a the plight of a 1800s naval doctor treating a sailor with a mortally infected wound to the lower arm, with no pain medication to hand. To save the sailor, the arm must come off, and it won’t be pretty.
The alternative, for the NHS, is that it slowly bleeds its expertise into the private sector, whilst the demands it faces increases ever higher with an ageing and idle population. Public healthcare collapses, and we find ourselves left with an American-style for-profit system.
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In France a consultant cardiologist (for example) earns ~£185,000 ([Link](https://www.erieri.com/salary/job/cardiologist/france/paris)). In Germany it’s £196,000 ([Link](https://www.erieri.com/salary/job/cardiologist/germany) ). In the UK its £82,000-110,000 [Link](https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/cardiologist)
Its a good salary compared to most jobs, but doctors in the UK are ridiculously underpaid. It’s a tough job and it’s no wonder many are looking for the exit.
Can’t really blame them, far better options for high achieving individuals like this both in terms of financial reward and work life balance.
Problem is that for every doctor that does leave it increases the workload for those remaining, which leads to more burnout and poor work life balance. This then means they start to explore other options and then leave themselves.
I’m not sure if there is a more up to date version of this, but I think this gives a better comparison.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/0acc1895-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/0acc1895-en#figure-d1e24397
I’ve been hearing this from 20 years ago. No one is irreplaceable. If they want to leave let them leave.
Who out there hasn’t considered leaving their job? I assumed this would be 100 percent for all professions.
In the UK, you can get paid more to move `<div>`’s around on a webpage than you can for healing/saving people’s lives. It’s wild.
This tracks with my friendship group.
Of those I know who entered Surgical training in 2020, I’d say about a quarter have left that, and half of them have left medicine altogether.
Was having a chat with a couple the other day. They’re both feeling trapped and disillusioned. They want to consider other specialties or countries. But they also want to figure out what the hell they could do outside of medicine.
The NHS is very good at creating a great uncertainty about how doctors can survive outside it, to be fair. It’s much more a stick than a carrot approach. It’s hiring processes and its training are very different to anything else, and knowing how to take out an appendix doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve got much skills to offer to many beyond perhaps a seamstress.
Yep chimes with my family and friends.
Sister became a doctor, did 3-4ys in the NHS and has emigrated to NZ. All of her coursemates are in NZ too.
She doesn’t want to come back: worse pay, worse conditions. I don’t blame her.
I’ve already left the NHS, a few of my friends have too and a number of people I know of have left to Australia/NZ
Slice the “social protection” budget in half, restrict public care access to palliative/hospice for those aged 70 and over and erase doctor’s responsibilities relating to any mental health condition not serious enough to warrant legal sectioning. Use part of the saved money to increase doctors salaries to competitive levels. These measures are harsh, but consider a the plight of a 1800s naval doctor treating a sailor with a mortally infected wound to the lower arm, with no pain medication to hand. To save the sailor, the arm must come off, and it won’t be pretty.
The alternative, for the NHS, is that it slowly bleeds its expertise into the private sector, whilst the demands it faces increases ever higher with an ageing and idle population. Public healthcare collapses, and we find ourselves left with an American-style for-profit system.