Tonight:
2°c
In my day being a junior doctor sucked. I had a miserable time, was bullied by an evil female surgeon with a chip on her shoulder and permanently felt like a zombie due to a ridiculous work rota. I'm not sure I learned anything for the first year or so other than the fact that this really wasn't the working life that I wanted or hoped for. I got out and sought an alternative.
Essentially we were slaves, used 24 hours by consultants uninterested in training us. We looked for any opportunity to rise as quickly as we could or get out altogether. Alas, those were few and far between.
Very little attempt was made to rectify this until the EU working time directive, which was introduced into the NHS last summer, forced hands. Designed to improve the work-life balance of junior doctors, it limits the working week to 48 hours.
Understandably many rejoiced until the realities set in: the situation now is as farcical as ever. Juniors are asked to lie about the number of hours worked to ensure trusts are compliant with the directive, or made to “voluntarily” opt out of the directive when signing their contracts.
Junior doctors now work the majority of night shifts and weekends, meaning that although they are indeed working fewer hours, they are missing most of their important teaching and training sessions. Of recent medics who wanted to carry on and specialise, 22 per cent were turned down by hospitals because they lacked skills or experience — a fault of their working rotas.
Junior doctors now tell me the only way to get work done is to sneak back into the hospital when everyone has gone home. They are being made to work intense shifts doing work that should be delegated to less well-trained people in a gross misuse of highly skilled staff which will lead to a dearth of properly trained specialists.
So it doesn't come as any surprise that latest figures show nearly a quarter of junior doctors dropped out of their NHS training in England after two years. Not all are lost from medicine as some take gap years or move to other parts of the NHS but many head abroad to work in Australia, New Zealand and other places where they can enjoy a better working life. All I can say is “clever them”.
Hospitals are struggling to cope with the 48-hour week and are running understaffed rotas where juniors have to work on thinned-down teams with no specialist guidance. Hospitals need to look more closely at their rotas and how to reduce the bureaucracy and menial work that takes up so much of junior doctors' time.
Until the problem is sorted, doctors will continue to leave. And who can blame them?
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Reader views (6)
I knew about the crazy long hours but consultants being unwilling to train is a new one to me. Without the professional training element of being a junior doctor, what on earth is the point of that sort of job? You’d earn more with less stress in another profession surely?
Junior doctoring is supposed to be a sacrifice you make to gain progression towards being a Consultant with lower hours etc.
I’m appalled that selfish British consultants are unwilling to honour tradition and train their successors.
- Luca, London, 10/09/2010 13:16
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The trouble as you point out is not the EU's working time directive, but rather the fact that the NHS is so poorly staffed with inefficient rotas. All other member states manage to meet with these requirements. Furthermore, the press were in uproar in 2004 when plans were originally being discussed, yet none have bothered to lament the NHS for failing to plan for the full introduction of the plan this year. They have had 6 years after all. I would say this is the most balanced article I have read on this issue. Thanks Christian. Exactly what I expected from a good doctor 
- James, London, 09/09/2010 16:58
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My partner hasn't even been able to choose relevant rotations for her GP training. The hospital just offers loads of A&E and Medicine rotations and nothing relevant to her training to become a GP.
Most junior doctors have had plenty experiance in A&E and medicine rotations. It makes them feel like they're just there to fill in positions because they're short on staff because that is what the NHS is doing because the alternative is locum doctors from abroad - many who cannot speak comprehensible, or are able to comprehend basic English, let alone drug names.
- Ed, London, 09/09/2010 13:40
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Everything that has been said here is correct. We do not work 48 hours a week, we just have to say we do. We get 1 hour of teaching a week and spend hours doing paperwork. I am learning nothing, have a hugely anti social rota, worked 39 hours in one weekend alone recently. I too have rude and plain evil consultants. This is not what I trained to do and I will get out straight after F2. Thank goodness Christian Jessen has spoken up........ Am so tired if reading consultants whining on about lack of training when in reality they mean....... Damn I have to go in more often!!!!
- Dr r, London, 08/09/2010 23:23
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My daughter an FY1 has just worked a 12hr + shift on Sunday where she was so busy she did not even have time to have a coffee never mind a lunch break, This was a locum shift at her own hospital (the 2nd in a week as there was no staff to cover)nurses breaks are "protected" why arent junior doctors.
- Anne Thomson, Glasgow , Strathclyde, 08/09/2010 18:31
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I dont think its true that no attempt was made to improve things before EWTD. I worked a partial shift system in 1998 and this meant I worked a max of 94 hours a week, with guaranteed time off for sleep within every 24 hours. Sure it was a busy year, but it was also a great one where I felt important and valued in the hospital and had great colleagues.
The EWTD has just served to force working hours to be ridiculously reduced, we could easily work harder than 48 hours a week- all other professions do including nurses. I waived my rights to it as a senoir trainee- I simply found it infuriating to be told by some HR person with a rota when to take a teabreak/ finish work. if I want to work an hour longer here and there I will. My sister is a lawyer and noone tells her to stop working and take a teabreak.
- dr liz, glasgow, 08/09/2010 12:53
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