The Hospitals we will work in

spagboll

I'm hitting the wards in a year and a half

I have always been told that when I'm a junior doc things will be different, the EU working time directive, no more 72 hour shifts and such

But turn on the news and its obvious that things will be different in that they will be alot worse - record numbers of patients on trolleys, more people going public due to health insurance costs increasing, an aging population, increased drug abuse and obesity and a shortage of docs and nurses, and of course the country being broke

I'm expecting to be hugely over worked, all the EU working time directive will do is stop me from getting paid overtime

To blaggard young students into the notion that times have changed for the better is unfair and unwise.

Am I over reacting?

dissed doc

YOu need to ensure you turn up when work starts, and leave when work ends. There will be an unwritten pressure to remain late but that has no bearing on your career; the insitution will continue, if you leave at 6pm or 10pm.

rbrbrb

It won't affect your career?? Yeah the consultants are going to put you on the same footing as the guys who stay as late as required.

thesituation51

That's just how it is! It was very idealistic for anyone to believe that was actually gonna happen! Some of the smaller hospitals have implemented the EWTD fully though, and all interns get to go home the day after call in most hospitals, so work in them if it really bothers you -otherwise, put in the few years spade work that everyone has had since time immemorial, and it'll pay off! Quoting the EWTD to get to leave at the official knocking-off time will not make you popular among your peers or superiors! To be fair, it's not really a career field you'd go into if you weren't prepared to have it be a bit insane for the first few years! If you want, you can be a GP in 3 or 4 years from qualifying and then you get to make your own hours, so I think, at the end of the day it'll be worth it! I take your point about us being told all this stuff about shorter working hours etc, but that stuff has been talked about for years and years, and by the time you finish (not sure if when you say hitting the wards you mean, starting clinical training or being qualified), it may have improved yet again! a lot of junior docs i know are in around half 7 or 8 and home by 7! not toooooo bad! it'll all be worht it!

ThatDrGuy

thesituation51 wrote: »

That's just how it is! It was very idealistic for anyone to believe that was actually gonna happen! Some of the smaller hospitals have implemented the EWTD fully though, and all interns get to go home the day after call in most hospitals, so work in them if it really bothers you -otherwise, put in the few years spade work that everyone has had since time immemorial, and it'll pay off! Quoting the EWTD to get to leave at the official knocking-off time will not make you popular among your peers or superiors! To be fair, it's not really a career field you'd go into if you weren't prepared to have it be a bit insane for the first few years! If you want, you can be a GP in 3 or 4 years from qualifying and then you get to make your own hours, so I think, at the end of the day it'll be worth it! I take your point about us being told all this stuff about shorter working hours etc, but that stuff has been talked about for years and years, and by the time you finish (not sure if when you say hitting the wards you mean, starting clinical training or being qualified), it may have improved yet again! a lot of junior docs i know are in around half 7 or 8 and home by 7! not toooooo bad! it'll all be worht it!

Absolutely. After just one year as an Intern, 2 years of hell as an SHO, 2-4 years in no mans land as a Reg, 5 long painful years as an SPR, 4 years doing a PHD, 2 years Fellowship in the USA and a few years locuming around the place you could have a permanent job ! Assuming you pass all the exams along the way and spend hundreds of hours doing "research".

Ever wonder how interns can go home ? Who covers for them ? SHO years just got even more hellish.

Chunky Monkey

At least you were getting paid for it before O_o

thesituation51

Not sure where the above poster is working, but in the hospitals I've been in, that's really not how the vast majority of the NCHDs feel. And if you don't like hospital medicine, there's always GP, which you can apply for at any stage after intern year!