Joined the picket line in my home town for the second round of junior doctor strikes:
The Keen One a.k.a Kenny’s hen parties were super fun – planning was stressful at times, but I took my responsibilities as Chief Captain of the Bridesmaids VERY seriously, and it all came together in the end!
It’s been a very busy two weeks.
My sister (a.k.a The Keen One a.k.a Kenny) shared my last blog post on her Instagram, and I’ve been blown away by the responses to it. So many people have reached out to show support and check in with me, and I’ve been so moved and overwhelmed by their kind words.
I don’t really share my blog with people I know in real life, as the majority of readers and followers of this blog are strangers from all over, so it’s always surreal to me when people message to tell me they’ve come across some posts. As always, I appreciate anyone for stopping by, and hello to you all!
Since my last update, my jobs have changed. I was informed by my TPD (Training Programme Director – we’re all assigned one as GP trainees) that my hospital job next year has been changed to a GP post. I was meant to be doing 4 months of Medicine for the Elderly from December to April next year, but because requirements for GP trainees mean we now have to do up to 24 months in primary care as part of GP training, that hospital job has now changed to a GP post.
So what does this mean for me? It means that after next week, I will have no more hospital jobs until I become a GP (by God’s grace!) – the only out of hours shifts as a hospital doctor I will be doing will be locum shifts if I want to, which means NO MORE NIGHT SHIFTS.
No more ward rounds, no more ward cover, and NO MORE NIGHT SHIFTS.
As you can imagine, this made my final set of nights last week fly by, because I just kept thinking, almost there…
So so grateful that the nights weren’t too stressful either – I’ve really not been enjoying being on my base ward over the last couple of weeks, so being in AMU last week was a breath of fresh air, and a reminder of how much I love my job when I get to clerk and spend time with patients, without feeling rushed to do ward jobs or being pressured to complete discharge letters. I really needed that reminder because it’s been tough.
After my final shift, the Consultant doing the post take ward as we were handing over said I’m the most cheerful post night shifts junior doctor she’s ever worked with, and that really made my day. I’m feeling more like myself at work again, so here’s hoping my final shifts on my base ward before rotating to GP in April go as smoothly.
I’ll leave you with some pictures from our GP Trainee Gala Dinner a couple of weeks ago – SO MUCH FUN!
Exactly 10 years ago I had my interview for medical school, and over the next three days I’ll be joining the junior doctor strikes. My 17 year old self would have never seen this coming – refusing to go in to work, really? Goody-two-shoes me who has dreamed of becoming a doctor since she was 5? Never! But nevertheless, here we are. So I thought I should explain why.
First things first, a junior doctor in the UK is any doctor who isn’t a Consultant or GP. It annoys me that the media tries to put across the narrative of junior doctors as ‘young’ or ‘inexperienced’ doctors who are fresh out of medical school, and this isn’t true. I graduated 4 years ago and I am still a junior doctor. My Registrars who are nearly 10 years post graduation are junior doctors. I know GP trainees and doctors who are in their mid/late 30s – we are all junior doctors, so let’s get that straight to begin with.
Next, let’s talk about pay- since 2008, pay for doctors has gone down by about 26%. So a newly qualified FY1 doctor, after 5-6 years of medical school and graduating with nearly £100,000 in debt, gets paid about £14 per hour. As an ST1 GP Trainee with nearly four years experience as a doctor, I get about £19 per hour, and a Registrar (ST6-ST8 with eight to ten years of experience) gets £28 per hour. The BMA is calling for pay restoration, to bring junior doctor pay back to the level it was in 2008. This is because with the cost of living crisis and the cost of being a doctor (many people don’t know we have to pay hundreds of pounds yearly for exams, indemnity insurance, and to keep our registration), a lot of doctors are struggling.
It’s due to this that many are leaving to work in Australia and New Zealand because doctor pay is better, as are working conditions, because as you can imagine, people are more willing to work if they know they’re getting what they deserve for their skills.
Now I’m well aware that I’m so blessed to have a secure job, and many people can only dream of getting what I get paid. But being a doctor isn’t an ordinary job – it comes with so much additional stress and responsibility, that I even struggle to talk about the toll it takes on me some days (I’ve always been better at writing how I feel). Knowing a decision you make could cost someone their life is so SO hard, and I feel like a lot of the general public just don’t understand this. So is it too much to ask to be paid to reflect this?
Having a National Health Service with the majority of services being free to access is one of the greatest things about the UK, and I’m so proud to be part of it. But without enough doctors to provide services, the NHS as we know it isn’t sustainable, and that makes me so sad.
But that’s not the main reason I’m striking. I’m striking because I think I’m beginning to show signs of burnout.
I’ve been more irritable and snappy on the wards, and I’m worried that this is slowly starting to creep into my life outside work because I’ve been getting more short-tempered, easily annoyed with people around me, and I just want to be away from everyone some days. Also, I’ve been crying for no reason sometimes, what’s up with that??
We had a GP teaching day on wellbeing last week, and one of the talks listed symptoms of burnout. I cried because I could relate to quite a few of them.
You see, working on a ward with inadequate staffing means I’m looking after too many patients, and this is very stressful. It’s also really unsafe because if doctors are too stretched and tired because they don’t have time to eat or drink properly during busy shifts, things can get missed. And if there is no continuity of care because the ward has different locum doctors working there everyday, patient care suffers. This is what is happening across the NHS at the moment, because there just aren’t enough staff because the Government isn’t doing enough to retain them, and patients are dying because of this.
I knew very early on in medical school that I was never going to be top of my year or anywhere near that, but I knew I would be a good doctor because even though I wasn’t as “brainy” as some of my colleagues, I genuinely loved interacting with and spending time with patients. I’ve always seen being compassionate and empathetic as my strengths, and the day I start to lose that is the day something needs to change.
Well that day has come much sooner that I thought it would because I was snappy with a patient last week due to being stressed on the ward, and I actually made them cry. It was like an out of body experience because I felt like I was looking at myself and thinking, “Who are you?”
So I feel like the day for something to change is here, because if I start to lose my compassion then where does that leave me?
(P.S – I immediately apologised to the patient after snapping and she was so so kind about it – “It’s okay, you’re all doing your best, I know it’s busy.” Reader, I cried.)
Life As A Junior Doctor 