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Junior doctors' pay deal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Peter Roots*
Affiliation:
Devon House Adult Psychotherapy Service, Mindelsohn Way, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2QR
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Abstract

Type
The Columns
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 2000, The Royal College of Psychiatrists

Sir: From December 2000, additional duty hours will be replaced by a banding system based on the time spent ‘actually working’ on call. Psychiatry trainees will be paid significantly less than their colleagues in other specialities, who have shorter rest periods. While to an extent this is justified, the size of the pay differential is alarming and the higher level of stress experienced by psychiatrists (Reference Dreary, Blenkin and AgiusDreary et al, 1996) is not recognised.

A house officer choosing a career may be faced with either a pay cut of £48 per year to take up psychiatry or a raise of £6413 per year to do general medicine. With the introduction of tuition fees, the British Medical Association estimates that the debts of final year medical students will rise from an average of £7738 in 1998 (Reference BrooksBrooks, 1998) to up to £25 000 (British Medical Association, 1997). This will have grave implications for recruitment to psychiatry. The College needs to address this issue if it wants to attract doctors into our speciality.

References

British Medical Association (1997) Briefing. British Medical Journal, 315, 7107.Google Scholar
Brooks, A. (1998) Medicine may become ‘domain of the privileged’ British Medical Journal, 317, 558.Google Scholar
Dreary, I. H., Blenkin, H., Agius, R., et al (1996) Models of job-related stress and personal achievement among consultant doctors. British Journal of Psychology, 87, 329.Google Scholar
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