Medical job prospects

[#1_Wasteman]

Ok, so as you can tell by the number of my posts (or lack of), I'm new here - Hi.

Anyway, I have wanted to study medicine for a while now. A pivotal point in my decision stemmed from a relatively grave personal experience. I've attended numerous premed courses and seminars and whilst they've been considerably informative, in that they discussed the financial rewards and starting salaries of the profession, they hinted at the fact that job opportunities, prospects and general security were on the decline.

Now, I have absolutely, and I mean ABSOLUTELY no intention of enduring (for want of a better word) 5/6 years of medical school, hence graduating well after the majority of other university attendants, only to be sitting on my butt desperately ringing around for jobs afterwards.
I was always under the impression that although difficult to get into, medical graduates were practically guaranteed jobs. All of a sudden however, I'm hearing that qualified doctors are again in severe competition with one another and many are left unemployed. Well screw that - seriously. But, is this the case?
Can anyone provide me with any links with figures/facts which could potentially answer my question?

I apologise for my seemingly whiney tone, but I'd prefer this minor discrepancy resolved.

Additionally, I'm considering pharmacy (clinical or community) as a back-up to include on my ucas form but just cannot find any relevant UK based information. My google searches perpetually provide me with silly pharmacy related job applications etc. I would simply like some links detailing pharmacy prospects in the UK be it salaries or the range of fields available.

Any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated.

#1_Wasteman.

[yeliab_cram]

You're not going to get many responses to this in the Royal Society of Medicine forum, but anyway:

You are quite right, medicine is and remains to be a tough course to get onto. Traditionally however, once you got through the medical degree you were pretty much garuenteed some sort of job as a doctor until the bottleneck between SHO and SpR when the competition kicked in with avengence. However, you could always sod hospital medicine and become a GP.

Suddenly, there are too many medical graduates, not enough jobs, the sudden sacking of between 5,000 and 10,000 junior doctors (depending on who's figures you read) and obscene competition for ST jobs. Pay for average junior doctors has declined, as has job security.

You want to know why. So do most of the medical profession, who are seeing, not only their own careers fudged, but the integrity of the NHS itself coming under threat.

I can't give you a definate answer. only what i think (perhaps a view shared by many) based on my observations of the decline over the last 5 years.

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Simplistically, the NHS had been (un)happily bumbling along in an underfunded and generally neglected way under the Tories. It worked, but not particularly efficiently. Doctors were moany, but not particularly spectacularly. Life was far from perfect, but it was stable. Training was good. The system was functioning.

A decade ago, Mr Blair came to power. His world vision was to reform the NHS (and other public services) to make them more efficient and to provide a better quality of service for the public. Lets face it, before New Labour, patients were waiting in A&E for 11hours to see a doctor.

As part of these reforms massive ammounts of money were invested and targets were introduced to guide how this money should be spent. At the same time it became clear that to fulfil these objectives we were going to need more consultants and more hospitals too. So two important things happened. 1) medical school intake (previously fairly steady) increased by 56% in 5 years and 2) Labour set up loads of PFI hospitals (hospitals paid for by the private sector, which are then paid off at alarming rates of interst by the taxpayer for the next 3 decades).

As all this was going on, new European law demanded that doctors dont work more than 48 hours each week (less than half what most house officers were doing at the time) and the government also lead massive reforms into medical education and training itself.

All these ideas were probably well intentioned. but as you can imagine, the results of each new inititive would take many years to come to light. So we remained in a state of ralative stability, with notable increases in service - reduction in A&E waiting times, new hospitals, new equipment and new medical schools.

Over the last few years, the combined effects of these reforms have started to bear fruit. Sadly, its been shitty fruit. Increasing medical student numbers meant many new house officers to do the ward work without working too many hours. great. unfortunately, you dont stay a house officer forever, and each one wants to either train to be a hospital specialist or a GP.

With so many new young doctors, getting a registrar post was getting harder and harder. For some reason it had never occured to anybody that funding twice the number of SpR (or new ST) jobs than 5 years ago, costs twice the money. so does employing all those new consultants you set out to create to improve the service.

Shit, there is no money to pay for these new posts. and oh dear, because of our PFI hospitals we are already in £5.8billion worth of debt.

It was time to do something drastic. Thats right, its obvious isnt it. when the system is starting to fall apart, the best way to fix things is to completely redifine postgraduate doctor training, and remove all the SHOs so that all the new F2 doctors and all the older SHOs are applying for the same ST jobs. And then the quickets solution to the hordes of pissed of junior doctors, is to sack half of them.

So now, we have a situation where there are too many medical graduates for the number of doctors the government can afford to employ. The country needs more senior doctors, but we cant currently afford to train them or fund enough new consultancy posts. Much of the investment that could have been used has been spent on PFI hospitals, NHS managers and the persuit of targets.

It is not the end of the world that there is competition in job applications for doctors. its nothing new, its just been transferred to an earlier stage of training. The major, major problem is the way in which these selections are made. MTAS (now renamed) which was perhaps the final straw. so ineffective that the most qualified doctors were overlooked by the system. Other than being unfair, this system raises a second major issue. Each medical student costs one quarter of a million pounds to put through medical school. paid by the taxpayer. Each medical graduate who goes to work in Australia, in investment banking, or law is a vast waste of taxpayers money.

So there you have it. My quick(ish) guide to why we are a bit ****ed at the moment.

If you are willing to fight, there will always be a way through. if you know that a career in medicine is the only thing that will make you happy, and you are still keen, even after being aware of what is going on right now, then go for it. but dont be expecting an easy ride.

[#1_Wasteman]

I'm amazed that you took the time to explain in such detail. That reply is deserving of karma - or would be - if this site used it.

Thank you very much yeliab_cram. I wish you the best of luck throughout your remaining years at Leeds.

Since my question has been pretty much answered, and the thread's in the wrong section in any case, an admin can promptly close this.

[persianmedic]

thank you Marc. good piece of info.

[yeliab_cram]

i type quickly, and am killing time waiting for a bus and its raining.

not all people are so interested in my ranting though:

http://www.newmediamedicine.com/foru...d=1#post495174

[yazoo]

1st - I also applaude Marc's reply.

2nd...

Now, I have absolutely, and I mean ABSOLUTELY no intention of enduring (for want of a better word) 5/6 years of medical school, hence graduating well after the majority of other university attendants, only to be sitting on my butt desperately ringing around for jobs afterwards.
I apologise for my seemingly whiney tone, but I'd prefer this minor discrepancy resolved.

I acknowledge you're a new member and that you've apologised for being whiney, BUT...

If you envisage "enduring" med school for 5-6 years, I would most strongly encourgae you to do something else. Even the most enthusiastic of medics will get a bit jaded from time to time, and they find most of it fun/interesting etc etc.

If you are not excited by the idea of med school, do something you are excited by. You owe it to yourself, even if not your future colleagues.

[Singh.Simran]

1st: I concur.

2nd: Maybe he is being realistic. It after all, school, and a means to an end. We will enjoy it, and find it interesting, but it's not all fun and games now is it? The cynics side of the coin is just as valid as the eternal optimists...

And i also suspect it was to some degree dramatic license to emphasise the facts that some law etc grads will be earnins 6+ figures before we're out :|

[yazoo]

2nd: Maybe he is being realistic. It after all, school, and a means to an end. We will enjoy it, and find it interesting, but it's not all fun and games now is it? The cynics side of the coin is just as valid as the eternal optimists...

Maybe poor word selection (i.e. endure)? Perhaps. If not, I would stand by what I said. I would seriously question someone's motivation for wanting to be a Dr if they felt med school was something to be endured.

And i also suspect it was to some degree dramatic license to emphasise the facts that some law etc grads will be earnins 6+ figures before we're out :|

Perhaps. Maybe law is the way to go?

[#1_Wasteman]

1st: I concur.

2nd: Maybe he is being realistic. It after all, school, and a means to an end. We will enjoy it, and find it interesting, but it's not all fun and games now is it? The cynics side of the coin is just as valid as the eternal optimists...

And i also suspect it was to some degree dramatic license to emphasise the facts that some law etc grads will be earnins 6+ figures before we're out :|

Precisely.

I used to term loosely to imply the fact that although it will no doubt be a dynamic and interesting experience, it could seem 'unrewarding' considering the length of time, to a certain extent, other salaries, and, of course, the point I was emphasising being that I could end up unemployed after it all. Maybe I didn't make it clear enough. Just to clarify, medical school would be a dream come true, but only on the condition that it wasn't widely considered a means to an end, but the final barrier having been crossed and anticipating greener pastures ahead.
I'd rather you didn't question my motivation and/or attitude and simply answered the question at hand.

EDIT: One more thing. Does anyone have a rough idea as to whether including pharmacy on my ucas form will hinder my chances of getting into medicine? I will call the necessary unis to confirm but any past experiences be it yourself or friends/family would be helpful.

[Victoria09]

EDIT: One more thing. Does anyone have a rough idea as to whether including pharmacy on my ucas form will hinder my chances of getting into medicine? I will call the necessary unis to confirm but any past experiences be it yourself or friends/family would be helpful.

Most unis state explicitly on their websites/prospectuses that including a non-medical course, such as pharmacy/biomed/anything else as a 5th choice for backup will NOT be interpreted as lack of commitment to medicine. In fact, they would consider it very sensible as medicine is such a competitive course.