tony de wonderful

It's a lot of money but you are guaranteed a job if you pass and fees all around for student have gone up a lot.

The vast majority of Doctors come from privileged backgrounds anyway, it won't change anything there just perpetuate the status quo.

Most professions require extensive training BTW, even many trades.

SPEN555

So that clearly shows they are paid way too much as they have the choice to finish as they can afford to. I would jack my job as would a lot of others if they could afford to.

I think the Doctors should have kept their heads down as it's really not the time to be raising this when so many people are struggling.

The pension of 68k per year is laughable. Most people won't even have a pension fund value approaching that!

john banks

You are no longer guaranteed a job if you pass. Again mismatches in supply and demand, many juniors went overseas.

I was from single parent family and was eligible for free school meals, but nowadays the benefits would have been thrown at us. Does that allow me to claim a virtual pat on the head for not being born with a silver spoon in my mouth?

I doubt I'd take the risk now, I got £1000 in grant for the first year, £800 the second and then it stopped IIRC. I got £50 a month from my Dad. But I didn't have to pay tuition fees. My wife took on student loans to support me, and I had a bank loan. I think I owed £15k when I finished. I hate to think what it would be now, but I was lucky (and very hard working) to get through as a child educated during a conservative government when social mobility was genuinely possible. Now it seems it isn't.

john banks

£68k is indeed laughable as a pension. Many doctors don't earn that never mind have it as a pension, but if you become a partner in General Practice or a Consultant you will nearly always make more.

If medicine paid much less, many would go and do other things as the sacrifices made would tempt many to an easier job. There have been times doing car work where I've made more for a much easier job than I make through medicine, but I needed to make a decision to do one or the other as it was getting too difficult juggling both, so in the last 12 years I've done car work here and there until the combination got too much or I fancied a change. Medical work is consistent, car work isn't, but it would be relatively easy for me to make £60k a year through car work.

Pay too little and you'll get monkeys, just as in the same way that banks sucked away some great scientists.

tony de wonderful

Not trying to be funny John but like a lot of public sector workers you have somewhat exhalted view of your own value in the free market, and a naive view of life in the private sector.

There are 25 million unemployed people in the EU.

You might be a genius car mechanic or tuner but most don't make 60k a year, or it is risky, or it favours fortune. Being a GP is almost a job for life, pension, benefits etc. It's a lot different than not knowing where the next job is coming from and having to pay your mortgage with that in mind.

john banks

The difference is that I have actually brought in substantial private sector income and paid the tax on it. It will be difficult for you to take a "funny" position on that And I can honestly tell you it is a lot less demanding than today's job looking after the sick and dying and in no way deserves to be paid anywhere near as well, but actually can exceed it sometimes.

I'm also supporting my wife's new startup.

If you think I have a naive view of life in the private sector you are grossly mistaken.

And as others have said you have a chip on your shoulder about doctors. Perhaps you wished you'd done it?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Like this ?: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=cir...9,r:3,s:0,i:77

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

One of the problems with talking about "The Health Service", or "The NHS", is that what one part gets wrong can end up tarring others who don't deserve it.

I have a great deal of time for those who work at the sharp end, those who deal with the sick, the dying, even those who THINK they are sick.

But it can be let down by those in admin, as it has been in my case.

And it gets tied up in rules, regulations, red tape and targets, like most things in the public sector, thanks to Labour......

Government interference doesn't help, either

tubbytommy

iTrader: (20)

pissy strikes again with another troll fest.

tony de wonderful

There's a difference between being a dilliante in the car scene and doing it to keep your house and put bread on the table John. I'm not saying you couldn't do it but your optimism whilst perhaps admirable might be misplaced.

I don't agree with you saying "perhaps you wished you'd done it". It's a pretty pessimistic view of morality when avarice justifies itself by appealing to presumed avarice in others. In this way you could defend any oppression or exploitation.

john banks

Sorry I don't know what a dilliante in the car scene is, but when I had the time to do so I was making $42 an hour for an average of 32 hours a week, and held this position as a contractor for 2 1/2 years. I was also doing other short term work for another company. Around this time I was making more from my hobby than my wife ever has from her work, and she has a first class honours BSc, an MBA and was a commercial/project manager for a few different organisations with 14 years of experience in fine chemicals and manufacturing. Now you decide, one minute I'm optimistic about my abilities to make money in the private sector, and whilst this wouldn't catch the heather alight isn't bad for what started from a hobby. So you can rubbish that and say it is optimistic with respect to making a living, or you can accuse me of avarice from making too much, but you might struggle to do both simultaneously.

You might find better targets elsewhere, but I:

1. Am not striking
2. Am not moaning
3. Have proven an ability to make money in the private sector

Your go

Perhaps you will be brave enough to state your salary, what you do, and why you think it compares favourably or not with what I stated above. Accuse me of making crap all from the private sector if you regularly better it. Accuse me of avarice from the public sector if you prefer.

jef

iTrader: (13)

when it says "doctors" to strike - i take it that means all unite members (in medicine/health care)

eg nurses, surgeons, support workers, gp's alike?

just the term doctors is used to encompass all workers? is that right/wrong?

john banks

Just doctors jef, members of the British Medical Association (so GPs, Consultants, junior hospital doctors), and from what I hear not all of them. Nurses are thinking about it.

cster

Your first patient has arrived Dr DeWonderful, shall I send him in?
Now that works for me!

tony de wonderful

I am not going to get into a ***** waving contest over pay but I was making high 5 figures in the job I do but it's not a job I can sustain any more a) because I am ill at the moment and b) because the lifestyle takes a serious toll. Sure I could take the few years I did that and extrapolate that to 'I can earn this much' as some universal statement but it is a ****ty lifestyle and subject to the fortunes of the economy. Would you want to be tuning cars at 55 and or maybe not useful anymore due to changes in technology? I am just being realistic about life outside the cotton-wool of the public sector.

My comments about avarice were because I understood you were trying to justify Doctors' high and possibly unfair pay on the basis that I would do the same thing if I were a Doctor. I could have been mistaken though.

john banks

Put this another way TDW, if a Consultant makes £74.5k (albeit a minimum, and some make much more but many don't make a lot more from the NHS) and is working 60 hours a week for the NHS (many do more) for 46 weeks a year, they are making £27 an hour.

When the dollar was at its strongest, I was making about the same hourly rate from the private sector once you correct for pension benefits.

High 5 figures in a job is similar to many doctors, and it takes a serious toll on them too. What is the difference?

I wasn't actually tuning cars BTW, but if you are good there is considerably more money in that than what I was doing. I was sitting with a laptop being paid to hack.

I am justifying doctors pay on this basis. I have a real and viable alternative, not imaginary as I have shown. The only reason I don't continue is that I cannot sustain two jobs like this long term. I'd happily do just the engineering and did give it serious consideration.

tony de wonderful

There's jobs in oil and gas which pay more than that John, but otoh some of the jobs on rigs pay less (per hour) as you work 12 hours a day and if you think about it you are really paid for being away 24 hours a day.

Lots of these people hate their jobs though...I mean really hate. Lots of people in my line of work are like that.

You'll always find jobs in the private sector which pay loads, even certain welders get silly money, and what about some Lawyers and Bankers?

I just think our society has become so fixated on material acquisition and it is sad to see this permeating through to (supposed) pillars of society such as Doctors and Teachers. Now if someone is getting paid more than you it is indignation and feelings of low-self worth....they call it 'low moral'.

My main bug bear with the public sector is their total lack of sympathy for the private sector tax-payer who pays the bills of the former. It was evidenced by that BMA bloke on C4 news yesterday. It was obvious to me that he didn't care and the BMA is just another rogue sectional interest like the worst unions...no better.

john banks

Loads of people moan, and loads of people think no one else should make more than they do. They need to get a grip and man up.

Your bug bear is the reason I'm not striking. I actually agree with you.

Our health service has very good outcomes compared to the percentage of GDP it consumes. Consultants are effectively worked to death by the NHS (and they keep these jobs for the kudos and respectability it confers I think), when you see the rates some can make from private work it makes their NHS work seem astonishingly cheap.

I made more in an hour from some private work the other day than I made from the NHS the whole of the rest of the day.

Just because you haven't been able to drive through a persistent near six figure income from the private sector, don't think that no one else could!

scoobyster

Why should doctors be paid an equivalent to similarly qualified professionals in other industries in the private sector? There are plenty of other professions in the NHS that work under similar or worse conditions but are paid at a level that means the job has to be treated as a calling rather than a means to make oneself wealthy. If you want to be wealthy you should work in a capacity which generates wealth. If you want to save lives and make a difference then work for the NHS. There is a happy medium of course and I don't begrudge professional level salaries in the NHS, but some of the salaries demanded by consultants is simply obscene. And yes demanded is the right word as I understand it, I believe doctors simply refused to be included in the NHS' Agenda for Change [on salaries] and were pandered to simply because they are doctors. It's about time they joined the real NHS and the real world.

tony de wonderful

Oh I know that. That isn't my argument though, it is about whether the private sector workers who esteem their worth so high could. Yes I know Doctors can make loads privately but one reason for this is the existence of the NHS which limits the supply of Doctors to the private sector.

There is lots of people in the oil field who think there are worth loads. The oil industry isn't the real world, that is a favorite saying of mine, I suspect this applies similarly to the public sector.

I could earn that sort of money in the oil field but for me the cost is too high. I've seen too many burn outs who spent a career chasing money now are on their third wife and second heart attack.

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

Just as an aside, most of the docs / consultants I know realise that the salaries are good (even though we have had an effective pay freeze for a long time) and also that the pension is pretty good too.

What most are worried about is when they can actually retire and get their pension.......how many years are they going to have to work ? 45 years?

The best surgeons are between 37 and 50, before that they lack skill and after that they lack finesse / dexterity. Would you like a 68 year old surgeon hacking at your cataracts. Not me.

I'm in an allied profession but work under the same rules as hospital docs. I started work in 1982 and after 40 years I have 40/80 th's of my final salary. That's at 62 years old and not sure I could do what I do now with all the fiddly dental implant / oral cancer stuff. Working to 67 would be a no-no for my patients.

Shaun

pslewis

Interesting Post .... and a fine example of a very wealthy Public Employee - let's do a little analysis:-

1. One of my partners is planning to leave early because of pension disincentives ............ this simply indicates that they can afford to take early retirement, most people are not able to do that.

2. Another colleague is leaving this year perhaps earlier than she might if it wasn't for all the performance related stuff .............. this indicates to me that she knows that she will be caught out due to low performance, a reluctance to be measured, most people are measured upon performance.

3. My predecessor left because he was fed up with it .......... again, this indicates an ability to leave a job as finances are no issue.

4. Speaking to others, they are not just moaning but are in a position to quit and I think will be likely to do so ............. once again shows an ability to leave employment as a Doctor due to the historic huge pay.

I've got some news for you ..... most people cannot leave their work as they simply cannot afford to do so.

To strike over a Pension which will pay £68,000 a year AND a £194,000 Tax Free Lump Sum is disgusting and shows Doctors up in the same light as Bankers - GREED, GREED, GREED!!

john banks

The figures you quote are about double the people I'm talking about. Still very decent all the same, but not unrepresentative from what people of their ability could achieve in many other career choices.

The choice of retiring when they want is due to living beneath their means, but the flip side is that clearly the money and job satisfaction isn't enough to retain them for longer. Some workers don't make enough to live beneath their means. To achieve this for doctors would give you the Soviet Union.

You did note my point that I'm simply withdrawing from this pension because the numbers don't add up presumably - I'd get less out of it than I put in. Is that greedy or common sense?

pslewis

Well, you could be accused of not contributing funds into the pension pot for the benefit of future Doctors Pensions ..... as previous Doctors contributed to the fund you will be dipping into (after not contributing what you needed to to keep the fund alive and well for those who follow).

Is that common sense - or pure personal greed?

tony de wonderful

This is what I am on about John, it's a dishonest line of argument. I know you may have 'proved' you could earn the same tuning cars but to say your particular case can be extrapolated into some generality isn't logical.

Furthermore it implies that private sector pay is a function of the common sense usage of 'ability' which would apply to Doctors, i.e being disciplined and technically intelligent, educated. The private sector doesn't work like that, many things we might call vices become virtues, lots of high paid people are simply ruthless and ambitious, or slavish to their bosses, good at crawling over the backs of others etc etc.

You might not sleep so well at night being an estate agent or car salesman as you do a Doctor.

john banks

Can you give an example of these other NHS employees, what they do, what they are paid, what qualifications they have, what the entrance requirements were and how long their training was, and compare the responsibility they carry compared to a doctor?

john banks

Would you voluntarily pay pension contributions that were giving an excess back to the treasury? Would you pay tax you didn't need to?

The argument is no different.

john banks

What responsibility do I carry as an estate agent or car salesman?

What daily decisions do they make and need to be able to justify that carry any real weight other than complying with basic consumer law and misrepresentation?

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Pete, you tell us how wealthy you are and that you work for local government, yet slag off the Doctors for earning a decent wedge, ok, some take the p1ss but I suspect, by and large, most are hard working and honest, they are paid to be professionals, who train for 5 years before being junior doctors, it takes years to make decent money and do sane hours.

There is a pecking order, a doctor should earn more than me due to the added responsibility and training, they are at the top of the tree in terms of jobs, outside company directors, bankers, footballers and other anomalies, for a traditional job they fit in at the top tier.

If it wasnt well paid, who would do it, all those years in A and E patching up drunks, dissecting corpses, studying and paying to do so, after that you get a new patient showing you their manky parts and moaning about their ailments and you have to retain interest, when Mrs Smith (86) shows you her itchy fanny or another tub of lard comes in reeking of **** having ignored your advice again.

I think at the moment, high earners are being targetted as being pariahs, they have always been there it is just now things are tight they come in for more scrutiny, perhaps they should keep quiet in the current climate but nobody wants to get dicked, you live to your means and they dont want the goalposts moving, same as anyone.

tony de wonderful

I wasn't talking about responsibility but conscience. Ethics isn't the same as law. Being into sales like that requires one to be completely ruthless and bend the truth if necessary. Some people don't find squeezing as much money out of others as possible to be very conducive to feeling good about what one does.