[bertstare]

-Toughest admissions process of any course
-5 of the hardest years of university
-Another 6-8 years of training with very long hours, highly stressful
-****loads of debt from medschool
-Finally once becoming a consultant at 104 years old they might pull in about 80-90k?

Is it just me or for the amount of **** they have to go through, do they deserve to be earning a fair bit more than that? Its a good salary but nothing spectacular. Hell, dentists make that easily whilst chilling 9-5 four days a week

what say you?

[noisy06]

The forces of supply and demand.

[killa78]

Public sector...
So paid via tax revenues.
And the Government is cutting them down.

And the fact that Doctors are supposed to do it to help people and not the money.

[thegodofgod]

NHS is the biggest employer and only has a very limited budget.

I presume the private sector would have a lot more money to play around with

[Miss_Scarlett]

(Original post by killa78)
Public sector...
So paid via tax revenues.
And the Government is cutting them down.

And the fact that Doctors are supposed to do it to help people and not the money.

I debate this point and would like to modify it to "....and not solely the money" if you have any sense at all, one would be thinking about financial stability in any career especially in todays economy. You can't expect pure and utter altruism, everyone works to earn a living

[CyclopsRock]

They more or less only have one choice of employer. That makes their bargaining power incredibly low, despite their importance and thorough education.

[Mr Dangermouse]

Market equilibriums.


Two reasons for this:
1 Supply and demand
2 Most doctors are public sector


The government as the employer seeks to employ acceptable standard doctors as cheaply as possible(simple economics), and being the employer of the vast majority of doctors in the UK it can pretty much afford to drive wages down as low as they can go without all the doctors switching away from medicine or leaving the country.


You can't really blame the government for not just giving doctors a big pot of money. It would be a waste of tax revenue.

[killa78]

(Original post by Miss_Scarlett)
I debate this point and would like to modify it to "....and not solely the money" if you have any sense at all, one would be thinking about financial stability in any career especially in todays economy. You can't expect pure and utter altruism, everyone works to earn a living

Yeah, to a extent though.

Don't medics have to take an oath or something?
Money shouldn't affect the quality of service.

And I know plenty of people that wrote on their PS's that:
'I've always had a passion for medicine, the ability to help people' etc etc
But they meant very little of it tbh.

[Miss_Scarlett]

(Original post by killa78)
Yeah, to a extent though.

Don't medics have to take an oath or something?
Money shouldn't affect the quality of service.

And I know plenty of people that wrote on their PS's that:
'I've always had a passion for medicine, the ability to help people' etc etc
But they meant very little of it tbh.

What you say applies in a utopia.

The truth of the matter is no matter how benevolent and altruistic you say you are...part of you, or anyone wants to earn money. Enough money not to have to worry about it. It such a huge factor in all of our lives that anyone who says otherwise....Im sorry, is telling fibs.

OF COURSE I want to help people. But just like any job of skill, or indeed any work at all...it should be paid. Thus your point is redundant and like I said if you are ONLY going into medicine for the money, then that is wrong. But it has to be taken into some consideration.

[tazarooni89]

The biggest reason doctors are paid relatively little is simply because most of their money comes from the government, and the government doesn't have very much. But if you look at countries like the USA where most work is privately funded, doctors are earning significantly more.

There's also the issue of supply and demand. Okay, demand is high, but supply is very high as well. Despite doctors' (relatively) low salaries, people are still in desperation to get into Medicine, for whatever reason. Perhaps they consider that salary sufficient, perhaps they're more attracted by job security, respect, helping people etc. In any case, there's no real need for salaries to be much higher than they are, because there are so many people willing to do the job regardless.

And also, since doctors are supposed to be doing their jobs for altruistic reasons (whatever the reality may be), it might not go down well with the public if they were earning bankers' bonuses. People already complain about CEOs of charities like Unicef earning around £150k.

[killa78]

(Original post by Miss_Scarlett)
What you say applies in a utopia.

The truth of the matter is no matter how benevolent and altruistic you say you are...part of you, or anyone wants to earn money. Enough money not to have to worry about it. It such a huge factor in all of our lives that anyone who says otherwise....Im sorry, is telling fibs.

OF COURSE I want to help people. But just like any job of skill, or indeed any work at all...it should be paid. Thus your point is redundant and like I said if you are ONLY going into medicine for the money, then that is wrong. But it has to be taken into some consideration.

But the majority of my friends have gone into medicine for either:
A) The respect of being a Doctor
B) The money

The ability to help people isn't that important to them.

And salary does tend to matter alot to Doctors.
Look at the Public sector strikes...

[digitalis]

Simply put: the NHS is a monopsony employer.

It takes all junior doctors and gives them the 'take it or leave it'.

People sometimes wonder why you don't have a return of service contract for medical school...the fact remains that if you wish to practise independently you have to complete your obligatory specialist training through the monopsony employer, who dictates wages.

[Joinedup]

Isn't being a gp was where the money's at now?
Tbh what's wrong with 90k... It's more than 3 times average, it's *supposed* to be hard to make that sort of money.
think it's the distorting effect of the bulge belt bonus culture that's got people thinking they should be getting money thrown at them.

[internet tough guy]

(Original post by bertstare)
-Toughest admissions process of any course
-5 of the hardest years of university
-Another 6-8 years of training with very long hours, highly stressful
-****loads of debt from medschool
-Finally once becoming a consultant at 104 years old they might pull in about 80-90k?

Is it just me or for the amount of **** they have to go through, do they deserve to be earning a fair bit more than that? Its a good salary but nothing spectacular. Hell, dentists make that easily whilst chilling 9-5 four days a week

what say you?

Well using the same line of argument, you could easily say the something similar with footballers and how they're supposedly overpaid. The thing is, its all about supply and demand, there are loads of quality straight A's students who want to be doctors, so from the government and taxpayers' point of view, there is no logic in paying them more than they earn right now.

[zippyRN]

(Original post by bertstare)
-Toughest admissions process of any course
-5 of the hardest years of university

this to some degree is subjective and also depends on whether people obsess about Deciles etc ... the fact is someone who graduates last in their class is a still a doctor.

-Another 6-8 years of training with very long hours, highly stressful

paid quite handsomely and with restricted working hours / patterns of work - which have been in place for a dozen or more years and gradually got stricter and stricter, are their any band 2 SHO jobs left ?

age of CCT completion under the new systems is 14 -16 years after entry to med school assuming no career breaks - people get their in their mid to late 30s in many specialities giving 30 years of Ass Spec / Consultancy

NHs pay rates exclude Ash cash, medico-legal, WLI etc before considering any actual 'private' work or extra PAs

[Harryh811]

I work in a private hospital and the consultants there aren't even close to short of money. All the consultants are earning more than 200k a year.

[Aramiss18]

Doctors, especially GPs, earn enough and certainly can't complain.

[Elwyn]

(Original post by killa78)
Doctors are supposed to do it to help people and not the money.

Really? Damn, better change uni course.

[Elwyn]

A doctor at a GP practice I was at the other week said they had a 'bad' year last year and each of the seven GP partners 'only' took home £120k each.

[twelve]

(Original post by Elwyn)
Really? Damn, better change uni course.

Me too.

Who knew medicine was a job as well?!