In reply to ultrabumbly:
> They have chosen a profession which they have usually pursued since being a teenager. Usually a junior Dr knows other Drs. They aren't swilling martinis at golf clubs being offered "opportunities" or whatever else you probably imagine their position gives them access to. Due to the demands upon their time they often have little life outside of work. They are probably the least mobile of any worker. And up to a certain point they have been or will be paid peanuts for the privilege esp. if you look at in terms of an hourly rate. Though this isn't really part of the issue, but if you look at the financial side of it alone (ignore the vast societal and educational waste for a minute of a dr dropping out) there is a strong financial reason to stay in the profession as it takes quite some time to start paying off in any way at all.
Your first statement says it all really. They chose their profession rather than takings Hobson's choice and often not for reasons that you might believe. I worked in the medical profession for many years including neuromodulation, cardiology and orthpaedics. Many of the clinicians I had the misfortune to encounter were not doing their job because they had a desire to save or improve lives, they did it because of the kudos it gave them, the admiration from the general public it garners and because of the benefits of huge salary and huge pension, not to mention the 1 day per week built into their contract to allow them to do very lucrative private or medic-legal work. Many did it because they could and that they had the choice.
Many were narcissistic to a fault and did their job because they wanted their name in lights or on the next big medical paper. If they werent doctors, they would have been lawyers or politicians but you can bet it wouldnt have been a lowly paid job. Its one of the reasons I moved away from that industry (Ill come back to that). I acknowledge that this wasnt always the case (especially pain physicians) but the orthopods and cardiologists were mostly horrendous.
Their pay may well be peanuts for a time and the workload great but this is a means to an end. I have no stats to back this up but I can imagine that most fully qualified physicians with some exceptions came from middle class families. A good friend of mine has just married an A&E Dr and her dad is a judge, so dont expect me to cry into my coffee for the hard up Drs because Im sure that the vast majority have plenty of support.
Of course there is a great reason for Drs doing what they do but in the end, they have a choice, and its better than most people. Think of the poor folks at NHS or Tata who have lost their jobs, the former losing 50% of their pensions (not having the same protection or luxury as a Dr) and the latter looking down the barrel of the worst kind of structural unemployment imaginable. I mentioned earlier that I was in the medical industry; Im not not because I could earn more and have a better standard of living in IT, which I am now in, having made a choice at 35 years old. Im not a complete dunderhead but I have nowhere near the same intelligence as someone qualified enough to be a Dr.*
And to say Drs have limited contacts is somewhat naive.
> Unless you get your panties in a tighter bunch about some specific grandma avoidably "shuffling off" on some particular day(as I am sure we will see the gutterpress report as fact rather than speculation following the strike) than you would over thousands of grandmas doing so every year in following decades I struggle to find what you find so terrible about their protest. It is hardly as if it has been their first step in this dispute.
Ill tell you what I find terrible since you ask. I find the whole sorry affair a complete pile of shite. From the cack-handed way it was introduced to the political point scoring on both sides. (C)hunt is a complete arse and he has made a shambles of this. The Drs and their appointed leaders are no better and A&E Drs striking is no better than firemen striking IMO. They just shouldnt because whatever reason you had for signing up in the first place, the patient should be front and centre of it and striking completely destroys that trust.
*I had a pay freeze last year and so with inflation, I had a pay cut in real terms. I have a choice, I can choose to stay or look elsewhere.
Post edited at 14:58