One word - no.
This comment comes up a lot. Maybe this belief is promoted by reports like this (of a locum doctor earning £500K/year)? But stories make the news because they're the exception, not the rule.
All doctors are paid according to a scale,
set out here by the BMA.
If we break it down by pay per hour, you can see
that our basic pay is nowhere near that sum:
What does a doctor do for this salary?
Well, a doctor in the first couple of years
of training will often be the one doing vital
tasks that support patient care e.g. doing
blood tests, writing discharge letters to your
GP about your hospital stay, prescribing
your medications, helping a resuscitation
team, assisting in operations.
As doctors increase in years of experience, they also perform progressively more complex tasks and take on increasingly more responsibility. A doctor with 4 years experience may be leading a resuscitation team, performing surgical operations, managing a team of more junior doctors. Doctors also take on other, non-clinical, tasks as they progress, e.g. auditing standards of care, teaching medical students and other doctors. Most of these other tasks are unpaid and done in the doctor's own time. A 'junior' doctor with the highest levels of experience will shoulder extremely high levels of responsibility (e.g. being the lead doctor in the hospital at night for 100+ patients), make tough decisions (e.g. when a resuscitation attempt is not successful) and leading complex procedures and operations.
This table shows the basic pay only, there is a supplement for working anti-social hours (nights, weekends). The more anti-social hours you work, the higher the supplement e.g. an A&E doctor getting the highest levels of supplement (40-50%) would be working 3 out of every 5 weekends, and a high proportion of their shifts would include night shifts.
This table also doesn't include things that doctors pay for themselves: compulsory exams (£1-2000), GMC registration fees (av. £400/year), professional development courses (usually £100s), medicolegal insurance (sliding scale, from £40 to £100s depending on seniority), compulsory Royal College membership fees (£100s).
A doctor earning a salary of £100K is usually a consultant with almost 20 years of experience (i.e. up to 30 years post qualification), or a consultant with substantial levels of private work.
(By the way, the reason that locum doctor was able to earn so much is because hospitals are desperate to fill gaps to maintain minimal staffing requirements. This situation will only be made worse when this contract goes through - worse working conditions for less pay... how many more doctors will say "enough is enough"?)
This comment comes up a lot. Maybe this belief is promoted by reports like this (of a locum doctor earning £500K/year)? But stories make the news because they're the exception, not the rule.
All doctors are paid according to a scale,
set out here by the BMA.
If we break it down by pay per hour, you can see
that our basic pay is nowhere near that sum:
What does a doctor do for this salary?
Well, a doctor in the first couple of years
of training will often be the one doing vital
tasks that support patient care e.g. doing
blood tests, writing discharge letters to your
GP about your hospital stay, prescribing
your medications, helping a resuscitation
team, assisting in operations.
As doctors increase in years of experience, they also perform progressively more complex tasks and take on increasingly more responsibility. A doctor with 4 years experience may be leading a resuscitation team, performing surgical operations, managing a team of more junior doctors. Doctors also take on other, non-clinical, tasks as they progress, e.g. auditing standards of care, teaching medical students and other doctors. Most of these other tasks are unpaid and done in the doctor's own time. A 'junior' doctor with the highest levels of experience will shoulder extremely high levels of responsibility (e.g. being the lead doctor in the hospital at night for 100+ patients), make tough decisions (e.g. when a resuscitation attempt is not successful) and leading complex procedures and operations.
This table shows the basic pay only, there is a supplement for working anti-social hours (nights, weekends). The more anti-social hours you work, the higher the supplement e.g. an A&E doctor getting the highest levels of supplement (40-50%) would be working 3 out of every 5 weekends, and a high proportion of their shifts would include night shifts.
This table also doesn't include things that doctors pay for themselves: compulsory exams (£1-2000), GMC registration fees (av. £400/year), professional development courses (usually £100s), medicolegal insurance (sliding scale, from £40 to £100s depending on seniority), compulsory Royal College membership fees (£100s).
A doctor earning a salary of £100K is usually a consultant with almost 20 years of experience (i.e. up to 30 years post qualification), or a consultant with substantial levels of private work.
(By the way, the reason that locum doctor was able to earn so much is because hospitals are desperate to fill gaps to maintain minimal staffing requirements. This situation will only be made worse when this contract goes through - worse working conditions for less pay... how many more doctors will say "enough is enough"?)