A doctor mate just finished a 12 hour night shift in A&E. Snowed in. Anyone with a 4x4 able to offer a lift to Sheffield from Rotherham hospital?
Can't help sorry but just giving it a bump.
BUMP
Thanks...but kinda sorted: he's had a few hours under a back row table in the mess and is now doing 8pm-8am tonight.
Suggest anyone only goes to Rotheram A&E if you don't mind being treated by someone on a 75 hour week and in yesterday's clothes.
Still, clapping was nice.
Key workers should be able to live closer to where they work.
> Key workers should be able to live closer to where they work.
Surely making him live in Rotherham would be even more inhumane.
This should be illegal. It already is to drive in that state. Please, government, take another few quid in taxes, hire more doctors, and make sure that this doesn't have to happen! Commiserations to your mate
> This should be illegal.
And removal of the EU working time directive won't help.
> It already is to drive in that state. Please, government, take another few quid in taxes, hire more doctors, and make sure that this doesn't have to happen! Commiserations to your mate
Thanks; I'll pass on.
We spoke yesterday and then texts today. Next month he has a transition from nights (8-8) to earlies in back to back shifts - 21 hours straight in a 68 hour week. And we wonder why there's a shortage of A&E doctors.
Why has your post got dislikes?
>"...hire more doctors, and make sure that this doesn't have to happen!..."
Where from?
This is the joke with the nightingale hospitals, it's great to have a new facility but there aren't the staff sitting around spare to fill them.
A better plan (more viable at the moment at least) would be to provide suitable rest areas in hospitals for doctors and nurses to use and get the road cleared.
In Bristol recently, I met two NHS staff, a consultant and a nurse, at the end of their shifts, and in the conversations they told me the journeys they were then faced with. Madness I thought. Partly the distance, partly the traffic levels, added significantly to the time away from their homes.
In Kendal, I met a deputy head doing a stressful job, seemingly quite well. He lived in Blackpool. Whilst its not impossible to 'enjoy' a commute, just seems so wasteful of time and money etc.
I wouldn't do it myself.
> Why has your post got dislikes?
No idea - and don't much care.
Latest update is that there were only 3 doctors on last night - so it got to be an 8 hour wait to see one. He's back on tonight too. I really hope the non-accident/non-emergency contingent stay well away.
I’m lucky; my commute is 12 miles each way & takes me 20-25mins on country B roads. A colleague in my department drives 90mins each way, and somehow always manages to be in before me when I rock up at school at 7.15 each morning.
Made me smile then why I got so many dislikes. Why do people like commuting?
20 - 25 mins about bearable I'd say. Enough time for a bit of thinking/winding down. The thought of your colleagues day makes me feel old : )
Don't worry. Remember all those financial promises our valiant leader made when he was campaigning to get us out of the EU and inferring how many millions we could spend on the NHS?
>Latest update is that there were only 3 doctors on last night - so it got to be an 8 hour wait to see one. He's back on tonight too. I really hope the non-accident/non-emergency contingent stay well away.
That sounds like a standard night shift when I worked in A&E (3 junior doctors, no senior doctors on site, large hospital covering about 300,000 people)
> and inferring how many millions we could spend on the NHS?
Been given to Serco, masquerading as the NHS test, track & trace.
> And removal of the EU working time directive won't help.
> Thanks; I'll pass on.
> We spoke yesterday and then texts today. Next month he has a transition from nights (8-8) to earlies in back to back shifts - 21 hours straight in a 68 hour week. And we wonder why there's a shortage of A&E doctors.
Honestly that's not that bad.
My wife would work 80 hours a week, on average through her residency (the inpatient rotations). I think their legal limit was 85 hours a week, 6 days a week averaged over 28 days so weeks of 94-95 hours weren't unusual. Some days she'd go to work at 4 am and come home at 9 pm and we had a baby at the time. It's basically like working drunk, short term memory is shot.
Sadly its not changing. They suffered so they make the next generation suffer. There's a lot of macho bullshit in the medical profession and it comes from a coke head designing the schedule.
She now works 8-5 5 days a week, plus call nights and weekends (6 a year), and it seems nothing compared to what she was on.
Sadly Mik you're probably from my generation who worked 1:2s etc in the firm system
The present intensity of work is of a different level. I did 6 months of 134 hr alternate weeks but could sleep most nights with only 1 or 2 disturbances.
Agree that staffing etc needs to be better and run more humanely.
Resilience is the word used but without support from colleagues and seniors and some degree of control over our life at work there is no resilience.
> Why do people like commuting?
They don’t. They BEAR it. You seem very blinkered
> And removal of the EU working time directive won't help.
My wife and I live in a EU country. The so-called EU directives are simply ignored, including the working time ones. My wife just had her first day off in 3 weeks. Who knows when she'll next have another one. Should she dare to complain then she'd be simply sacked (has happened to other staff). Not sure if there's such a thing as "unfair dismissal" EU directives, but if there is it would be ignored too. There's a "Dept. of labour" ministry she (or her staff) could complain to, but as the country's president is an investor in the hospital I can predict where that would go.
If you think being in a EU state means you're automatically living in some utopia, then, with respect, you're wrong.
In fact, to hijack the thread somewhat, it is interesting to live in a country that doesn't even pay lip-service to the various initiatives and directives that are supposed to benefit EU citizens, regarding such factors as the environment, labour conditions, waste disposal, recycling, etc. What's frustrating is that for many issues the response to any transgressions is either to enact some sort of fine, or (more commonly) shrug their Brussillean shoulders and say "meh". The cynic in me tends to the opinion that the EU is more interested in the formation of these rules (the easy bit) rather than the enforcement (the hard bit). I don't want to become a Eurosceptic, but boy do they make it hard sometimes.
> > Why do people like commuting?
> They don’t. They BEAR it. You seem very blinkered
In a lot of cases they chose it. The. Mrs was out of work for over a year whilst looking for a local job but it was worth it to give her a 5 minute commute. This was only possible because we purposely bought a small house in a tatty rough area to allow us the flexibility to live on 1 wage if needed.
Unfortunately people feel the need to keep up with the jonses, live beyond their means and have to take whatever work is available.
> Unfortunately people feel the need to keep up with the jonses, live beyond their means and have to take whatever work is available.
My brother had to decide between an old 3 bed terrace less than 2 miles from work, or a newer 4 bed semi 12 miles away. He took the 'modern' house under instructions from his other half, they now need 2 cars and the actual sqm space in the 4 bed is less, but at least it sounds allegedly better when they describe it.
> Sadly Mik you're probably from my generation who worked 1:2s etc in the firm system
> The present intensity of work is of a different level. I did 6 months of 134 hr alternate weeks but could sleep most nights with only 1 or 2 disturbances.
> Agree that staffing etc needs to be better and run more humanely.
> Resilience is the word used but without support from colleagues and seniors and some degree of control over our life at work there is no resilience.
My experience was relatively recently on a supposedly working time directive "compliant" rota.
Unfortunately rotas are often designed by people who have limited insight into what it's like working a constantly changing shift pattern.
Ah, right. I'm not that much into 'bearing it'. There's always some choice in these things. Trouble is that lots of 'bearing' it can do us all down. It can have unintended consequences for the person on the long commute and the others stuck in the log jam. I'm certainly blinkered against heavy traffic.
> My brother had to decide between an old 3 bed terrace less than 2 miles from work, or a newer 4 bed semi 12 miles away. He took the 'modern' house under instructions from his other half, they now need 2 cars and the actual sqm space in the 4 bed is less, but at least it sounds allegedly better when they describe it.
Exactly my point.
I like a short commute of 20-25 minutes or so. It allows me to relax a bit before going from school kids to more kids at home.
I'm now 2 miles from work, and my 5 year old is at my school and Im with kids all day, even the commute..
> I'm now 2 miles from work, and my 5 year old is at my school and Im with kids all day, even the commute..
Bonus. When they are 12 or 13 and start to spread their wings, you'll be glad you spent all the time with them now.
20- 25 minute cycle beats a 20- 25 minute drive though......if its possible. Sets you up for the day. Something to look forward to on way home.
Sadly it's not. The roads are awful and it's new england weather with a 5 year old in tow. We're a small city with 9 colleges, it's perfect for bike commuting but there is just no infrastructure. I ride on my own and have been side swiped and coal rolled. There's just no way I'd ride with a kid on these roads.
It's great I get to spend time with her, there's just times when I need space after dealing with kids all day. The good thing is we get free aftercare so I can often run before getting her but I coach after schools in 2 out of the 3 seasons.
Excellent. So in order to avoid a long commute all i have to do is to find a partner who will pay my rent, food and expenses for years while i'm unemployed until a vacancy for a job in my field comes out within 5 minutes of the house and i land it.
Thanks for that, been commuting for decades and had never realised it was so easy...
> I don't want to become a Eurosceptic, but boy do they make it hard sometimes.
Shouldn't you be sceptical about the government of the country in which you live? Seeing as it's that country that must enforce the EU regulations they have signed up to.
I guess if the EU were to take strong action on enforcement, there would be a lot of complaining about 'unelected bureaucrats in Brissels telling us what to do'...
You chose your field, you chose where you live. Don't like the commute change something. There are a whole world of opportunities out there.
> Why has your post got dislikes?
Believe it or not there are people on here that don't like 4X4s so would instantly dislike any thread that has a tenuous link to the gas guzzling behemoths. I'm not one of them BTW. I have a land rover and would have helped if they'd moved rotherham nearer Lanark)
Cool, so then I have to find a partner who will pay my rent, food and expenses for years while i retrain somehwere local to the house to work in a field that offers work local to the house and then a few more years while i find a job in that field local to he house.
Thanks for clearing that up, my life is looking rosier already. Onwards and upwards
In reply to jt232:
> A specialist training program is something like 5-8 years long, that's if you work full time, don't do any fellowships, special interests, teaching posts etc.
> You choose a region to train but those regions are pretty big. Placements are usually a year and it's a requirement you move round hospitals.
> This person's choice is very likely to be move house every year till they finish training, commute, move abroad or stop being a doctor.
Yes. And there are "regions" that have some ridiculuous anomalies - I think Isle of Wight is in Eastern for example.
He's looking to emigrate; probably Canada. Many of his colleagues are following this route (go elsewhere). New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Chile seem popular.
> Thanks for clearing that up, my life is looking rosier already. Onwards and upwards
Glad I could help.
Let me ask you a question, why do you need to retrain for years? There are lots of unskilled and semi skilled jobs out there.
I'm guessing you have made the choice to earn a certain level of money to sustain a certain level of lifestyle and that level of money involves involves being well trained for what you do.
That is a choice.
My Mrs could earn a lot more if she did more training and worked longer hours and we could move off the sink Estate that we live on to somewhere nice but we made the choice that there is more to life than money and where we live.