[afandian]

It's likely not her choice.

In the UK medical professionals are doing the sensible thing, and leaving the profession. I'm sure most of them would much rather stay, but they're making the rational choice as individuals.

That's not the best choice for patients as a group though.

There's a serious under-staffing, under-pay and conditions crisis.

[scrozier]

It's always her choice. And I'm not being flip. Only individuals making good decisions will change this situation. My wife is also a physician and she has thoughtfully opted out of the "rat race." It's good for her, good for her institution, and good for the populations she serves.

[feet]

So if doctors are intelligent, why do they put up with such a horrible system? Surely they have some sort of power in these scenarios?

[HEmanZ]

They have very little power in most primary care specialties. The expectation from hospitals is you will work this hard or they won’t hire you. Hospitals are more than happy to just dump more hours onto their over-exhausted doctors rather than hire new ones who ask for fewer hours. The expectation from other doctors is you will work this hard because if you don’t, someone else will have to pick up the slack. Also, most of them sign as part of their contract basically “I’ll show up outside of contracted time if it is necessary for patient safety”, turns out this is like 50% of the time because they’re so understaffed

[feet]

Have they not realized that they can unionize?

[lukas099]

Doctors have invested huge sums of time, money, and effort into getting the qualifications needed to perform their jobs, and there are few alternative jobs they can transition into if they are given a bad deal.

[tsol]

I don't mean to be unfair, but this isn't that far from

>If you're so smart why are you poor?

Intelligence has nothing to do with power or leverage in a situation

[feet]

But it has everything to do with understanding that you can form a union, no?

[spiralx]

If you don't even know about these organisations then you're not really qualified to talk about what doctors should or shouldn't be doing or what power they do or don't have.

https://www.bma.org.uk/

https://www.hcsa.com/

https://doctorsinunite.com/

[feet]

So why haven't those orgs accomplished anything to get better working conditions for doctors?

[spiralx]

How do you know they haven't? Just because things aren't perfect doesn't mean things can't be better than they were previously, the NHS has been around for 70 years after all.

[afandian]

Yes, they are striking in the UK.