At the age of 63, I have decided to put off retirement and find that a lot of fellow General Practitioners are doing the same in view of the current uncertainty.
I have an endowment maturing next year and after paying in £44,000 over 15 years will be lucky to get 2/3 of that.
There will be a lot of young trained GPs with huge student loans with no job.
The same will apply in other professions and jobs.
I feel somewhat guilty but have no choice as I only started as a doctor at the age of 34,and the 9 years pension that I earned in a Bank was lost as you had to work for 10 years to keep it (it is now 5 years- NatWest)
I have been well and truly screwed by the financial system.
Hi
It's a very worrying time and I have every respect for the position you find yourself in -
you sound a very caring and concerned person.
What I can't help feeling from your post is that you are worrying as much if not more about
others who may suffer from this financial muddle.
So , hold on a second and start adding up some plusses, you've worked hard all your life,
have achieved the position of a worthy doctor - not come easy ! You're healthy , have a loving family
who support you - you know ' The world is still our oyster ' - whatever our age !!
So, I would start going a little wild if I were you - plan that retirement in two years time
and make it a good one - it's the only one you'll have !
floss xxx.
Can't say I'd retire if the average salary in my occupation was £110k a year (must be true, I read it in the paper)... I think I'd just about manage to fight on for a coupla years!!!
We have all been screwed George.Our investments are disappearing like the melting snow.
At least you have a mega salary to fall back on.
Sorry ,I love you as George the gardener but I have little sympathy for overpaid GPs.
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Quote from: betula on October 13, 2008, 22:58:12
I have little sympathy for overpaid GPs.
Not overpaid at all considering the hours they put in and the responsibility for keeping us from becoming Daisy dust.
Our doctor's surgery is only opened Monday to Friday these days and no out of hours visiting either, not like days gone by when they did work really long hours.
I'm with betula and think they are overpaid too.
Sinbad
Quote from: Sinbad7 on October 14, 2008, 12:08:39
Our doctor's surgery is only opened Monday to Friday these days and no out of hours visiting either, not like days gone by when they did work really long hours.
I'm with betula and think they are overpaid too.
Sinbad
So do the majority of doctors.
Well the younger you are the later your retirement is going to be, the retirement age is creeping up so eventually most people will die before retiring.
My husband didn't start earning until he turned 30 because he was a student until then. His first pension scheme chosen by his employers was with Equitable Life, he's not in the type of pension that may get bailed out. The company took on a new scheme and he moved to that and that went the same way. I don't think he's paying into one now, he lost faith in the whole pension thing.
As for Doctor's we need more British Doctors. I had to change practices because my GP fell out with his practice manager and he left. My old GP knew me and knew that i had white coat syndrome and that I needed my Blood pressure checked manually because of that and because the automatic machine couldn't get an accurate reading.
The new GP an African who wouldn't listen to anything I said (before that we'd had a chain of equally bad locums who could hardly speak english), I don't think he knew how to measure BP manually he certainly wouldn't do it. While he struggled with the computer the cuff squeezed tighter and tighter because it couldn't get a reading , my arm was covered in broken capillaries. I got very close to throwing the heavy bit of the blood pressure monitor at him...if I'd been in less pain i would have. Prior to this he'd put me on BP medication which it turns out I didn't need, the medication has damaged my health.
I moved from that practice immediately after this. They made some other mistakes too at the same time I couldn't get them to find my lost mammogram results it could have cost me my life. I got my new practice to track down the results (they'd been sent to a hospital consultant in a distant hospital I'd never been too!) which they did quite quickly but 7 months after the xray. It turned out I had a lump i had a biopsy fortunately i was lucky but it could have easily gone the other way.
A good Doctor is worth his weight in gold but some of them earn far more than they're worth.
Doctors being paid to much I don't think so, its not Doctors that have screwed up the country but the ponces that work in the city and others that sell financial services like mortgage brokers ;D
The last time I saw my GP was just after Peter died. I didn't request a visit: he turned up on the doorstep to apologise for not knowing that Peter had a heart condition. If he had known (and he should have) there would have been no post mortem and less trauma for me. in fact maybe Peter would still be alive ... but let's not go there...
Apart from that I can't remember when I last saw a GP. They send me letters about cervical smears and mammograms which always seem to arrive at times of personal distress for me (my mother's death, Peter's death) and so I put off going..... and most recently about some kind of sh*t monitor for bowel disease. Who cares? And of course they can't adjust the dates: they have to stick to the cycle. I'm not going to be a financial strain on the NHS because I won't be going there if I am seriously ill. I'll die. These things are of absolutely no interest to me. If I reach a point where I am so much in pain that I can't cope, I'll seriously overdose or go to a country that allows me to choose when I die.
Don't get me wrong: there's a lot of excellent health professionals out there but the whole juggernaut of the NHS also allows people to be lazy and greedy. Doctors are massively overpaid and many of the other health professionals are both undervalued and underpaid.
In recent years I have been constantly underwhelmed by our local GPs.
Apart from the odd occasion ,if you are lucky enough to get the fairly good lady GP,they look bored,indifferent and totally disinterested.
The surgery walls are smothered in their rules and regulations or gross body diagrams.
On one occasion while I was consulting the GP he took a private call on his mobile.I waited a few moments and then got my own phone out and called my mother for a chat.He did look a little shamefaced.He got the message.
I grew up with a family doctor who worked his socks off and was there for years.He was very well respected and we all loved him.And some may laugh but I think he loved us.He knew us all.
George, if you are reading this I hope you will not be offended as I have no idea what type of GP you are but even if you are the greatest you are not worth one hundred grand,none of us are,especially out of the public purse.
Rant over.
I think many of us don't realise some of the things a doctor has to do, or the stress of the job. I also think ambulance and fire crews and police should be up with them in the pay scales, all these people have to pick up bits and pieces of people out of car accidents, house fires, explosions etc. Doctors also take a lot of flack in A&E late on a Saturday night, you can't generalise and say they all don't work for what they get. Now dentists.....
My GP resuscitated my daughter so I am a little biased, but he was wonderful.... :)
I am sorry, I don't normally speak my mind! :-[ :-[ :-[
T.
A good Doctor is worth his weight in gold but some of them earn far more than they're worth.
[/quote]
I agree.
I think gp's are worth a lot more than footballers and film/tv stars..at least they do a worthwhile job..my daughter is an intensive care nurse, she's underpaid and undervalued..I'd rather pay a g.p than a politician ;D
I have no complaints about my GP, she's very good and always has time to listen. That's why the appointments run late (It's the norm for our medical centre).
Just be b***** thankful for what you have, I can remember what it was like before the NHS. I had sinus problems, went to the hospital where they they used a b***** great needle to punch a hole through the bone to relieve the sinus cavity, with no anaesthetic. I had a hip replacement in 1999 and have had nine very good years since then.
Quote from: manicscousers on October 14, 2008, 20:58:07
I think gp's are worth a lot more than footballers and film/tv stars..at least they do a worthwhile job..my daughter is an intensive care nurse, she's underpaid and undervalued..I'd rather pay a g.p than a politician ;D
Manics I was just clearing my kitchen and realised I had forgotten nurses so came back on specially to add them, thank you, they are wonderful people too.
T.
Most 'professionals' (and I use the term loosely) don't deserve the insane amounts of money they're annually paid but I don't include doctors in this. I personally believe that if someone is fully trained and equipped to save a life (which may very well be mine or a member of my family) they deserve all the money they get. I'd rather the high wages went to medical staff, police & firefighters before anybody else.
It's a shame for those who've had difficult times with medical professionals and I do sympathise. I had the same doctor from the age of 7 to 37 and he was very good. Very hard changing to a new doctor but he's also been very good so I have no complaints.
So should a GP earn 4 times what a nurse earns and twice what an anaesthetist, paediatrician or Maxfax guy earns? 'Cos they do!
I think GP's earn every penny,it's the Doctor, surgeons and them specialist who are called Mr(why is that?) you see in hospitals who work two to three days a week(three ten hour days because they are paid by the NHS to work a thirty hour week) for the NHS and the rest of the time for some private practice earning three times as much,that's why you have to wait so long for a hospital appointment or operation. my dad had to have a operation on his back two years ago the surgeon told him he would have to wait four to five months on the NHS,but if he went private(£8000) "HE" would do the operaton by the next week.!!
someone remind me, just how much does a premiership footballer earn, in a week ?
at least g.p.'s are useful ;D
We have a specialist in the family...I won't say which specialism but they've been through several medical degrees but having practised only in their specialism hardly remember any of the rest. Plus they only keep up to date with their own specialism.
A GP has to cover every area of medicine physical and mental and keep themselves up to date and the good ones do that. The best ones are good at listening and have great people skills. The worst ones are arrogant, rude and patronising. Some sort of performance related pay is in order maybe some testing from a 'mystery shopper'. With such good pay some are only in the job for the money they need to be weeded out, in fact as a biology graduate my first year at Uni was full of prospective medical students and the ones without the people skills could easily be picked out at that early stage!