Junior doctors confirmed for selfish pricks

Of the 54,374 junior doctors eligible to vote, 68% took part in the poll.

Some 21,459 - 58% - voted to reject the new contract.

Looking at the NUT strike one can only assume politicised coordination.

Anyone here support them. If so why so? I mean they don't even have demands anymore. Simply chucking the toys out the pram.

Was this always only ever about working weekends? If so why'd they spend the first 6 months saying exactly the opposite?

Other urls found in this thread:

hospitaldr.co.uk/blogs/our-news/end-limit-medical-training-places-reduce-dependency-overseas-doctors
thesun.co.uk/news/1403350/prospect-of-further-junior-doctors-strikes-increases-after-militant-medic-becomes-bma-interim-leader/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Am I being unreasonable or are the doctors?

Doctors in the UK including junior doctors have very generous working conditions and the BMA has had a dubious hand in maintaining low medical school placements (to maintain an artificial shortage). But I'm not sure I would go as far as to call them selfish pricks, but having conversed with many doctors including friends who've become doctors, they seem to have been brainwashed and put upon a pedestal. I mean they have an incredibly inflated sense of self worth compared to most professions including post grad STEM members, but at the same time paying them less isn't going to solve the woes of the deliberately badly run NHS.

Maybe the new contract is shit?

It does appear that the govt proposal isn't just about the weekend issue; there are other pay and timing differences between their own proposal and the govt's. The govt proposal also demands more hours in total.

I don't know the situation, but instead of assuming people are selfish maybe it makes more sense to consider that they probably wouldn't be willing to lose pay and potentially their jobs if what they were demanding wasn't necessary.

You referring to the graphic here?

I found this a bit into the dispute. I suspect the BMA came up with it as an extreme position in an attempt at bargaining but as you can see from their demands, they were unreasonable. They wanted more money for more favorable hours. But I guess this is how negotiations go.

Anyway, that graphic is quite old now and I'm not sure of it's validity even at the time. Only source was BBC. My point is that they've not even come out with demands this time. They have no interest in reaching a deal. They simply refuse the new contract.

I'd love to hear some of the reasoning behind this. If there is more to it that having to work one Saturday in 4 I'd love to hear it and would of course take back my selfish pricks comment.

It certainly looks that way to the majority of Brits. Not many degrees you can do that guarantee you a job for life at £80k minumum.


I've heard this one before but don't really understand. Who decides how many med school places are available each year?


They're not being paid less. The only case for claiming this was an equality impact assessment that said basically some women who take time out their careers to have kids will lost out slightly. Safeguards have been put in place to avert the worst of this. Other people affected are, tbqh, gaming the system. Working part time, not really progressing through their career, but still seeing all the benefits (current pay is determined by time served, not proven capability). They also 'game' it by working all the weekend and out of hours hours available, essentially resulting in a sorta-committed part timer working 30 hours a week earning more than somebody who works 50 a week at regular time.

All of these solutions are bad. The current rate is best out of the three proposed.

Anyway, the solution should be that with regards to the current rates:

* A basic pay increase to match inflation.

* Extend antisocial hours from 9am on weekdays and 5pm onwards on weekdays (see rationale below)

* Anti-social hours paid at +50% only

Pertaining why I think anti-social hours should be extended, the current government plan undermines the 5 day working week, and concept of anti-social hours. This once widely accepted concept barely exists for most of the working population these days and is in danger of being completely snuffed out.

If doctors can work 6 days a week, why can't you? Well anyway 3rd worlders work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week in places like India and we should never concede this, even if it means propping up an already well compensated aloof minority. For it keeps this idea in the public consciousness so that we may entrench it for all workers in our capitalist society one day.

Ideally there should be just two minimum wages for all ages in the UK (unlike the 4 tiers that we currently have, 16-17, 18-21, 22-25, 25+), a normal Mon-Fri 9am-5pm and +%50 one for all other times with working hours capped for the week (if your day rate is already above that +50% then good for you), unlike the +48 hours averaged over 11 weeks overtime penalty bullshit that we currently have.

In that scenario, doctors can go fuck themselves as they're already grossly overpaid, even now they are, I only support them now as it raises brings the aforementioned issue of weekend and anti-social pay to the public consciousness albeit in a minor way.

The whole system is screwed up, the BMA needs to stop throttling med school placements and doctors need to be treated fairly whether they're new or not.

Apologies, this is actually down to the government. Funding for medical placements come directly from the NHS budget. The GMC merely only supports a limit on foreign students (set at 10% of all placements) because it is considered a drain on NHS resources should they return to their home countries.

I was the user who wrongly accused the BMA of limiting medical school placements.

Please see the following link for a concise overview of the true culprit (citations to reports provided):

hospitaldr.co.uk/blogs/our-news/end-limit-medical-training-places-reduce-dependency-overseas-doctors

The General Medical Council (not to be confused with the BMA which is an union) which does regulate doctors who are fit to practise medicine in the UK, does recommend a limit of 10% on foreign students for medical school placements out of concern that they may emigrate upon graduation.

Medical school funding is drawn from the NHS budget and not the education budget, hence the concern.

I think the 5 day week is dead and gone. I see your point, that this can be used to try claw back the weekend in a broader sense. But at the same time I kinda feel that the NHS should be seven days. People don't get ill or hurt when convenient unfortunately.

My bad, I had heard that before too but I guess I got the BMA and GMC confused. Pretty messed up when student loans would actually be a better solution than what we have now. Even so, I suspect there has to be some collusion due to the closeness of the doctors' lobby to government, it seems like senior doctors want to impose and artificial shortage.

That's understandable. It also touches on another issue in the NHS. Staff retention. Thousands of doctors (junior and consultant) a year leave the NHS to go work abroad. What's the leftist position on this? I mean if you're medically qualified in the UK that means you've enjoyed 13 years of free state primary education then subsidised medschool (9kpa vs 150kpa in the US). Should junior doctors be legally obliged to spend X number of years in the UK practicing medicine after qualification? Not suggesting bringing this in now. But that just screams leach to me.

I've heard this one before and am tempted to believe it.

Wow so pessimistic, and there's me hoping there's enough fire to get a 4 day working week. Most call centres (a minority of UK jobs I admit) do 4.5 days a week. Do you really think that we will sustain any higher unemployment once automation increases further? I guess socialistesque policies aren't inevitable unless the people make it happen, but I doubt the people here are so servile that they'll tolerate increased unemployment AND longer weekly working hours.


It already is (yes right now you can get free medical treatment anywhere in the country at any hour even if its just a cold, you may not be able to book a specific appointment though and will have to wait on site till seen to), it's just that doctors and some staff (outsourced agency cleaners and carers still get less than min wage effectively) need to be paid more on the weekend. Instead of raising revenue and actually efficiently spending the money (ie private contractors), they want to diminish the working conditions in the future.

The guy who backtracked on that claim again, I swear I read an article blasting the GMC for this a few years ago, specifically calling the GMC out on their concern for "maintaining medical standards" by simply only allowing those they deem competent enough to get a place.

But alas I cannot for the life of me, dredge up said article, so it essentially is bullshit until I do (I will try wasting a few hours later).

They already do, we have both an unemployment crisis and an epidemic of overwork and stress, capitalism is truly the least sensible system.

I have no idea if this is due to a shortage of doctors or not but it does take forever to actually get treatment on the NHS for 'non emergency' treatment, try being mentally ill, unless you actively try to kill yourself you'll have to wait 2 months to get seen, then have 1 hour long appointment per month if you're lucky. Thanks, that'll really help me get back into work.

I did call-centre briefly and my shift was IIRC 5-11pm. So yeah, not saturdays but equally antisocial. Most other jobs Saturday has been expected.


Interesting point.

I know your pain, it took me 8 months to get seen and diagnosed for ADHD (well the diagnosis took a further 3 months after the preliminary assessment), this was during the time in which I was flunking university and I needed this information and the medication ASAP to redeem the situation.

Unfortunately it was far too late, but at least now I'm medicated, can now turn up to work on time and enthusiastically complete my remedial responsibilities in a thorough and timely manner just in time for the meds to wear off and sulk at being an horrible failure at life in my shoe box apartment.

It beats being unemployed and penniless though.

True. My old man is waiting on three ops, one on his eye, one on his know and one on a hernia. Has had numerous cancellations. I don't even think he has an appointment date for any of em at this stage. He's looking at going private.

They should, they should damn well be grateful for having such a pr.ivileged elevation amongst us proles within this country alone.

I would argue that we should lower wages to decrease global long term average wages but that would only exasperate the flight to private healthcare hellholes like America.

I have a cousin trained as a bone doctor in India, and now makes half a million USD working in Buffalo, NY. It's insane the amount of leverage doctors have and bottleneck in training them that we are willing to tolerate.

If anything needs automating soon, it's the medical profession.

shit that's the exact same situation I'm in, I think I have adult adhd too, I already failed last year and had to retake. I tried to get treated six months ago but so far little progress. I missed my last 2 appointments too which doesn't help of course but to be fair I'm specifically trying to get seen for a mental condition which affects my ability to accomplish basic tasks or do things on time, shouldn't that kind of be expected?

I think about dying all the time, but because I don't want to 'attempt suicide' unless I was going to pick an actually lethal method, I get this once a month shit

Don't kill yourself yet, get your meds sorted assuming you are diagnosed as such.

Trust me once you're medicated, you'll have that drive that everybody else takes for granted and actually get shit done in your life, well get more shit done than you otherwise would have (I didn't go back to uni, I gave up for the time being, the experience of utter failure put me off).

Then decide if are content with the life you are able to grasp for yourself. As it is, you considering death when you haven't even realised your productive (not to be confused with achievable) potential yet.

Hang in there buddy.

That's completely reasonable and a position that has been part of the labor movement for centuries.

Thanks comrade. I don't think I will kill myself, but I often wish I wasn't here.

Maybe things will get better but as you say I feel like a huge failure and having squandered my future and so on. It feels like things will always be like they are now.

Oh well. I guess there's nothing to be done for it but keep going.

Nah, it's undreasonable. The NHS isn't running a profit FFS. Every penny to the doctors comes from taxpayer's pockets. Where do they think the money comes from?

Fuck off porky. If you prefer not to pay your doctors, feel free to seek medical treatment in Somalia.

bampin. I know there's at least one Medschool fag on here. Any JDs? Wanna tell the class what you are holding out for?

We already pay them. Well. They've said repeatedly this wasn't about money. They used to say this wasn't about Saturdays either til their bluff was called. Dunno how things are where you are, but a 13.5% pay increase seems pretty damned sweet when most public sector wages have been frozen or near frozen for 8 years, and the private sector (at least small business) is on it's ass.

okay

BMA appoint 'militant' medic new chair, further strikes expected. But still no demands from the doctors…

Headline picked for your pleasure

> LEFTIE TO LEAD DOC STRIKE Prospect of further junior doctors’ strikes increases after militant medic becomes BMA interim leader

thesun.co.uk/news/1403350/prospect-of-further-junior-doctors-strikes-increases-after-militant-medic-becomes-bma-interim-leader/

Explain how their demands are reasonable. Are you in any way familiar with the economic situation in the UK? Where does the extra money come from?

inb4 MMT 'debt doesn't matter' bullshit

I know an accountant who works in the NHS, they tell me the doctors only reject the new contract because it means more hours for the same pay. If it were more hours for more pay, I guarantee they wouldn't care because doctors don't have a social life stop watching House it's unrealistic.

Hang in there, man

Doctors are paid by the hour over here so that makes no sense.

To clarify, tehy are paid a salary for a fixed number of hours then paid by the hour for overtime. The new contract reclassified Saturday as regular working hours (though only 1 in 4. Any more than that and overtime rates).

Read this thread as "Jewish doctors confirmed for selfish pricks"

Guess all the pol shitposting went to my head.

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Cry to me about doctors' pay after the government gives up supporting the windsors.

Until then feel free to get bent.

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I think people should have freedom of movement but absolutely the UK should require them to pay off their debt. My Americanness is showing, but maybe give them a bill for their higher education (say 300k) and them forgive an eighth of it a year for 8 years. If they leave early, then they have to pay some of it back. If not, they can leave in 8 years penalty free.

This is more liberal than leftist, but do you guys have any other pragmatic solution?