r/doctorsUK

Dumb comment from surgeon - so I’m in acute theatre (anaesthetic trainee) and just finishing a laparotomy- had the usual works going on (TIVA, art line etc ) and as the dressings go on the surgeons (consultant and reg) both ask to brief for the next while the current one is on the table.
I say no and they ask why not (isn’t it self explanatory? but whatever) - I explain why we shouldn’t brief right now (nobody can concentrate properly) . Still they ask for a brief (the next patient is a lap chole who’s been waiting for 3 days by the way) and I say no again.
Then the consultant says ‘well you’re not doing anything anyway so why can’t we’ … hmm just preparing for a safe extubation, no biggie.
Surgeon walks off in a strop (??)

39M GP, divorced. Recently during Warhammer player meet, a nurse in her early 30s who works at my practice once a week came over and said she recognised me from work. We got chatting and actually got on really well. She’s attractive, single, and genuinely seem nice, nerdy but if I’m honest, probably a bit out of my league. Now I’m wondering whether asking her out is a decent shout or whether I’m about to make a complete hash of things. For context, I’m not her boss, don’t supervise her, and have no authority over her, but we do work at the same practice. Would asking her out outside work be reasonable, or is this the sort of thing better left alone because of workplace boundaries? Trying to work out whether this is a sensible play or a failed charge roll before I embarrass myself and have to avoid eye contact at the kettle forever....

I remember when this story hit the headlines it was reported in US media also. Essentially a junior doctor groomed an underage disabled patient and did it over a long period of time. At the time the general shock was how has a) this person not been struck off and b) why isnt he in jail?

So now it goes to the highest court in the land and the judge still doesnt erase him! Like for me grooming an underage patient is license revocation no ifs no buts and I dont understand the mentality there that allows 'certain' doctors to get away with such heinous behavior. For sure stateside he would still be in jail.

How should you use annual leave before going off on Mat leave? For example if going off on Mat leave in December, should I use up all 28days for my training year from August before I go off? Or whatever I don’t use I can use when I return? Does the allocation reset when you return from Mat leave?

I have only been a doctor for a short period of time, yet i have seen the swathe of inequality that wrecks this country.

I have seen patients who are unable to pay for a transport (taxi/bus) to get home after being seen.

I have seen elderly people with grade four pressure sores, lying in their own excrement, waiting to be seen by a doctor. When probed about why they are in this state, they say they cannot afford carers.

I have seen people who due to poverty are developing conditions secondary to mould exposure, sugar intake , alcohol.

i went to medical school in a more affluent area, and am currently doing foundation years in a more deprived area, even the difference in healthcare is shocking to see. In my medical school hospital, people were seen quicker, more time was spent on them, their was more rooms to be examined, more staffing, whereas now people are struggling to be seen, their is understaffing of healthcare staff (HCAs, porters, doctors, nurses etc) . It’s just genuinely sad to see.

They’re a small minority of the world that hold a huge amount of wealth ( billionaires) / hand downs from family , yet the average person is living pay check to pay check.

Essentially this is more of a friendly debate. This pains me, i don’t want to see others suffering this way.

Are their doctors who hold anti socialistic views, and if so , why? i want to hear your opinions :).

in addition, what can we do as doctors to help these people more than we already are. Is their voluntary clinics? and what grade do you have to be to volunteer ( i’m in my foundation years)

Ps. If anyone has these sort of feelings, how do you advise i can cope with it better?

Current CT1 really starting to struggle with 4, specifically long days in a row. First 2 ok but 3 and 4 really get to me. Have an hour commute each way (London tfl commute). Never used to struggle like this in foundation. Not doing nights at the moment (rota doesn’t include them) but is a four person SHO rota meaning I do 7 long days a month - is that a lot? It feels heavy but i guess pretty common for an SHO rota. Any tips to make them better? Unfortunately commute time I cannot change for now as waiting to exchange on a property I’ve bought so living with relatives

Since Jack Fletcher’s email about an “update” on 15/5/26 with regard to pay negotiations, I have been wondering what on earth is going on? Jack said on 15th he would be “in touch again in next seven days”.

It will be seven days tomorrow.

What are we expecting to hear? Is it gonna be the same old “talks are ongoing, just watch this space for further updates”???

Can someone please tell me what is normal in breast radiology? I am independent in general ultrasounds, ct biopsies including lung and ultrasound biopsies (including liver and peirtoneal) but ive been in my breast radiology rotation for a while now and they were very reluctant to let me biopsy. When I ask they said no because the patient might bleed or get a pneumothorax??? Apparently the consultants in my training programme were not independent in reporting mammograms or mri when they started their first year as consultant (some even biopsies!) and this is normal??? Some had not reported any mris prior to starting their consultant job and this was 5 years ago, not way before when mri breast didnt exist. What is the point of doing a rotation if you're not going to be able to do anything or gain competencies? Or is this a case of them gatekeeping and not wanting to train me?

The key changes in 2027 are:

• Dhaka, Alexandria, Accra and Chennai will no longer run the exam
• The February exam will not take place in international locations. UK and EU locations will continue to be available in February.

 

We’re making these changes in 2027 because international demand for PLAB 1 has started to reduce after a period of significant growth.

No mention of UKGP, hm

Wanted to get a baseline of how everyone's non-medic friends are doing, and if our quality of life is actually better than its seems ie less pressure of getting laid off/statistically lower competition to find jobs comparing to the corporate world, (besides cardiothoracic I guess), not worrying about performance as much since mediocrity/bare-minimum would do most of the time in the NHS

Obvious there would be ppl doing rly well in pharma, investment banking, law, private equity, but probably for some of them, other factors are at play to their success ie a bit of nepotism/connections through family/social circles, outstandingly street smart and competent, they chose the right career at the right time when they are in high demand(Dentist👀)

Edit: sometimes I question how much I'm underpaid due to the medico-legal risks we take everyday even at the SHO level, and unseen hours working towards publication/Msc or PhD/Post-grad exams, but also I acknowledge we have somewhat job security in a sense that at minimum we can still locum around, try to get a fellow job if we are flexible with locations, get into GP/Psych training,

Hi everyone!

I’m happy to update you all about the rescheduling of the Resident Doctor Conference 2026.

We have received approval for funding for a rescheduled Hybrid conference to take place on the 13th June 2026. It will be hosted at BMA House in London, and you can also attend virtually.

The First-time-attendee event will now take place on 2nd June 2026. This will be an evening event and will be online only. This is due to an inability to find dates where the venue, the contractors, the staff, the co-chairs, the agenda committee and the funding were all available. I’m sorry that we weren’t able to have this as an In-person event as had been planned. Attendees will be sent a new agenda for this event.

I appreciate that there is relatively short notice for the conference now, and that there may well be some of you who are no longer able to attend.

If you still wish to attend, and want to keep your seat at the conference, please follow the link in the email you will receive today, and confirm your place.

If your place is not confirmed by 9am on 1st June, then we will allocate your seat to someone on the waiting list.

We will also re-open registration for anyone who wants to join the waiting list to take any seats that have been given up by people who no longer wish to or are no longer able to attend.

Once you have confirmed your place, if you need help securing leave, we can send you a letter to show your employer, asking them to release you.

There are also Elections for seats to the annual representatives meeting (ARM) which are open to delegates from our conference. Due to the operational complications of the conference being so close to ARM, the election is open to anyone who initially held a seat to the original cancelled conference, and these delegates will also make up the electorate of this election (as is usual).

Please read through the agenda and send any amendments to motions, and riders and any emergency motions to info.rdc@bma.org.uk.

It’s taken a lot of work to reschedule the conference (it even included rescheduling a family holiday) and We want to say a big thank you to all the BMA staff and the RD Conference agenda committee for all that went into rescheduling it.

We look forward to seeing you all in June!

In solidarity,

Dr Francesco Palazzo & Dr Erin Gourley
Co-Chairs, BMA Resident Doctor Conference 2026

I was a ST4 in a medical specialty with a chap who was an ST6 in the same specialty. He went OOP to do some research in 2022, then came back, quit his training number and went into pharma in 2023. We were all surprised as he was a great doctor and a good guy. He seems to have done great in the corporate world, has been promoted 3 times in 3 years and seems to be on a fast track to the top.

Anyway, we reconnected recently and we arranged to catch up- he was looking after his kids that day so said I could pop over for coffee and cake.

I was not prepared for what I saw. He lives in an actual mansion now. I’m not talking just a nice house, I’m talking a 6 bedroom mansion in a very expensive deanery with an acre of land. I was upfront and asked him his ballpark salary etc. his bonus this year was more than my entire pre tax yearly income (60% LTFT).

I know that comparison is the thief of joy etc etc, but this was 2 days ago and I really cannot stop thinking about what on earth I’m doing in my hovel, struggling for childcare, treated like a child at work, begging for annual leave or study leave etc, exams, publishing etc

How on earth do I move on and continue here- I’m really struggling to see the upside of being a medic.

Might sound dramatic, but increasingly it feels like the profession of ‘doctoring’ is being slowly diluted in front of us while everyone pretends not to notice.
Am I insane for thinking this way? None of my former medical student peers thought this way and chastised me for thinking this, saying that other staff deserved progression as well and that consultants shouldn’t be exclusively getting paid so much???

The rise of ACPs, ANPs, consultant nurses, PAs and every other alphabet soup role is no longer confined to a few outrageous anecdotes online. This is now standard across huge numbers of NHS trusts. Entire departments are being redesigned around substituting medical labour with non doctor clinician roles.

It’s interesting how the narrative has subtly shifted over the years, a few years ago, the messaging was that these roles were there to “support doctors” and “fill gaps.” Now the messaging is increasingly becoming “Why should doctors have a monopoly over this work?”, “all clinicians can share responsibility”, “doctors who disagree just want to preserve an elitist ideal”, this is becoming more and more mainstream ideas after data proves that doctor replacement isn’t some tinfoil hat conspiracy theory.
Surely the NHS/ the public/ govt/whoever has to realise the reason doctors undergo years of medical school, exams, postgraduate training, portfolio building, audits, research, specialty applications and endless hoop jumping is because the responsibility and complexity of medical decision-making is supposed to require that depth of training? Just because doctors can make mistakes isn’t a justification to dilute standards and let everyone have a crack at it?

I’ve seen trainee ACPs handed rota patterns, autonomy, and departmental seniority that would be unimaginable for actual medical students or FY doctors . Doctors compete nationally for training numbers while trusts bend over backwards to create permanent pseudo-training pathways for non doctor clinicians.

And despite all this “innovation,” NHS productivity still appears abysmal considering the amount of money being poured into the system. Everyone just says keep dumping more money into the NHS to reverse the austerity measure but I’m not sure if that will actually have an impact as it seems trusts seem absolutely incapable of utilising that money efficiently.

What’s really demoralising is that many consultants seem far more enthusiastic about training non-doctor clinicians than actual medical trainees. Junior doctors rotate every few months, get treated as temporary admin burdens, while departments invest heavily into creating permanent ACP led structures.

For context I’m super into EM, and emergency medicine feels like the perfect example of this decline. A&E fought to become a respected medical specialty with genuine expertise in acute medicine and resuscitation. Now many departments feel like glorified triage centres run by a random assortment of clinicians with increasingly blurred roles and little regard for what actual medical practice is supposed to look like.

if the NHS were genuinely serious about solving doctor shortages, they would massively expand and improve doctor training pathways, retain existing doctors, improve working conditions, and increase consultant numbers.

Instead, the system seems increasingly committed to replacing doctors with cheaper alternatives while simultaneously gaslighting doctors into believing it isn’t happening.

How long is this model actually sustainable?
Why is the public so okay for this to happen? At what point did the profession start to decline so heavily, why has it got to this stage, and why does the public hate doctors so much?

Long read sorry

I have been a little annoyed by couple of people recently who claimed that medical school difficulty is really just “CCC” level but the entry requirement is massively inflated due to its popularity (and privileged people etc etc).

1. some old consultant talking to a nursing colleague whose kid is doing A-levels (and not doing very well, got rejected by medical school and predicted BBB), claiming the above.
2. Again some renal consultant on a Facebook group because some influencer claiming that other professions can’t replace doctors because they won’t be able to pass medical school anyway (another extreme example that rubs some people the wrong way to begin with).

I mean yes you’re showing your own humility and virtue signal and all that to gain some wider public approval.

But must you sink that low to degrade your whole profession and all the effort you put in to get to where you are??

I remember some nurses say you me “that oh your family must be rich for you to go to medical school” and that “you must have got a lot of extra tutoring outside of school which is expensive”.

No! I came from a very disadvantaged background, fractured family, working 3 evening a week from the age of 16 to survive.

“Oh really”, change the subject.

I know medicine tend to select for people-pleasing type of people. But really, please have some self-respect and give credit to your own hard work.

We have sunk so far, and a lot of it is due to this kind of mentality.

Bonus - ran into some HCA doing nursing associate thing, and she thought that if she did MSc is paediatric nursing she would be equivalent to a paediatric consultant, and that anaesthetists are ODPs. She was horrified when I told her that she needs to go to medical school to be paediatric consultant.

Further question:
Those who think it’s not that hard, medical school is easy, if you sincerely think that, do you think we’re overpaid then?

How reliable are Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in NHS Trusts? Are they actually supportive/maintain confidentiality when concerns are raised to them about systemic issues and practises in Trusts that are, let’s say, not benefitting patients nor staff. (Asking just out of curiosity as I have seen a lot of posters about this but have never spoken to FTSU Guardian)

Talking routine outpatient appointments here only. Not emergencies, not procedures, not ambulance patients, same day reviews etc. I work in a DGH so don’t get specialist referrals from out of area either. Everyone is coming from local areas.

Had a patient come almost an hour late for their routine appointment and asked for them to be rebooked because I was then on to other patients with their appointments on time. If I’d said yes then all the clinic staff would have to stay an extra 20 minutes+ as no one goes home until all the doctors are done and we were coming down to the end of the clinic.

Personally I always run my clinics on time or ahead of time, rarely patients may wait 10-15 minutes beyond their appointment time if I have a complex consultation. I’m usually also willing to see patients if they’re up to 30 minutes late.

Told a colleague I rebooked the patient and they basically said we should never be rebooking patients if we’re still there no matter how late they are and started making excuses for why they might be that late.

I think we should have boundaries or else patients will take advantage of our good will without a second thought.

Just as the title says .
Also 2 things
what things should I look out for in my first payslip?
How much is the london weighing ?

I am from a third world country visiting a specific and crucial public university hospital in the UK and I noticed the consultants are very slow in the clinics. The average consultant sees around 9 patients per day. In my third world healthcare things move way faster a doctor could see around 20 or 30 patients per day which wouldn't be even a hard day. It feels like doctors here wait for half an hour just for the patients to come up with questions and while this is very nice, its not reasonable when the average patient has to wait for 12 weeks to start treatment.

I remembering seeing something similar in my country in a private university hospital where the overall uptake was 10 patients per clinic and I remenber how it felt like a waste of money to have this hospital still operating. It felt like there was a money laundering scam behind or they just have this hospital to keep the university running medical degrees.

I understand quality and accuracy are very crucial but why isn't speed as important in healthcare training?