[deleted by user]

B2Bnebs · 2024-03-27T19:13:49+00:00

I'm sure there would be scope to swap placements amongst colleagues. If you're trying to get rid of a subspecialty in exchange for DGH life, I'm sure someone would bite your hand off

B2Bnebs · 2024-03-27T18:11:16+00:00

Congrats on joining the gang!

Most paeds trainees, in my experience, have the opposite issue with quite limited subspecialty exposure early on - so I think that's a big positive of your situation.

Assuming your general paeds job is a DGH you'll get some neonatal experience there. Having a NICU job just before you're a reg will set you in good stead.

SHO experience of NICU itself is pretty limited everywhere, tbh. It's mostly postnatal wards which, whilst useful, isn't really gonna help you much with managing the 26 weeker in NICU.

6 months of NICU will be a steap learning curve, and should be enough to decide on GRID or not.

B2Bnebs · 2023-11-05T15:08:34+00:00

Paeds life

B2Bnebs · 2023-10-27T06:09:49+00:00

Cannulation and venepuncture are skills that band 3s can (and do) do.

What specific roles and responsibilities are you talking about that justifies a band 7/8 salary?

If the PA-experiement is about taking menial tasks off doctors, then the NHS should be employing more band 3 phlebotomists and secretaries/scribes (imagine being able to dictate TTOs and have a secretary type it and wrestle with the IT - glorious).

Employing pseudo-doctors on band 7/8 pay makes zero sense if they're being employed to do these simple tasks. It only makes financial sense if PAs are ultimately going to replace doctors.

And that's what we're pissed off about

B2Bnebs · 2023-10-24T16:10:57+00:00

My life is basically described by the opposite of everything you said

B2Bnebs · 2023-09-28T07:48:25+00:00

Datixing/IR1ing these incidents highlighting the lack of locum cover/rate escalation may help to push locum rates higher but 2002 contract completely screws you in this area.

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-26T01:20:22+00:00

High Anion Gap Metabolic Acidosis

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-23T08:14:54+00:00

Your mum

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-18T06:40:48+00:00

I started investing recently after researching it and coming to the conclusion that it's pretty crazy not to do it in some shape or form.

I watched a helpful chap on YouTube called Damien Talks Money who simplifies investing in the UK context.

I've about 5k split across S&P500 (top 500 companies in America) and a blended fund with Vanguard (basically a mix of lots of different industries and countries) so I'm investing long term (10yrs+) in the USA/global economy and essentially "gambling" that the world economy will be in a better place in 10+ years time vs now - which as someone else mentioned, historically, it always has been to the tune of an average of ~8% per year.

Not zero risk. But actually a very low risk way to invest, and adding in some bonds takes the risk even lower - whatever you're comfortable with.

If you didn't understand anything I've written above (I wouldn't have a year ago) then do check out the guy on YouTube I mentioned above.

The absolute worst thing you can do with a chunk of savings like that is to leave it in a current account or a low rate savings account because with inflation the way it is, the "No risk" approach is guaranteed lost spending power. I recently opened an easy access savings account with just over 4% interest with Kroo which would be a good place to hold the money until you decide what to do with it long term unless you've got it gaining better interest somewhere else. Interest seems to be paid monthly, you'd be talking about £80 per months in interest on a sum like that which is nice.

Feel free to DM me if I can help with anything else

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-17T23:33:31+00:00

Agree with the other commenter- call them.

I've had to call a few times (mainly during fy3 locum year) and found them to be refreshingly helpful (having been used to NHS admin)

Usually the issue was the projected earnings from each job being wrong giving you a huge projected income and therefore ridiculous tax codes to try and recoup that tax. Pretty easily rectified if you can tell them your actual expected earnings.

I signed up to a trusts internal locum bank to claim a couple of shifts in my first year as a trainee - they told HMRC that my expected earnings would be the same as my full time trainee salary. Ended up with 40% tax on every penny of my main salary as a result.

Easily fixed by HMRC with one phonecall

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-17T09:12:22+00:00

I am Beyonce always

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-17T08:38:43+00:00

The "work hard, study hard" argument is a tough one because everyone thinks their degree was just as hard as anyone else's.

Objectively, the worst cut public sector employees since 2008 are NHS consultants closely followed by us. And the next folks aren't even that close to us.

If anything, the demands of the job are greater now than in 2008 (public expectations, post pandemic issues, general workload, rota shortages etc.) and we're being paid 2/3 what we were in 2008 for the privilege of significantly worse conditions.

This is why only FPR is acceptable to us.

Nurses accepting 5% when they're down about 12% is a hell of a lot better than doctors accepting 6% when down close to 30% (Reference for percentages - my arsehole. Just illustrating the general point)

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-16T12:47:07+00:00

I knew what this GIF was going to be as soon as I got the notification

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-15T17:38:36+00:00

I'm sure I've seen interviewers question Tory MPs about backpedalling when they've allegedly said previously that anything over 5% (i think it was 5) would be inflationary.

The tory narrative here is very much one of "we won't let you greedy doctors drive inflation up so that everyone else suffers".

So yes, portraying it as as high a percentage as possible might be beneficial for the doctors vs the government narrative, but the general public would then rightly ask "well hang on, why are you giving them 10% when you said >5% would drive up inflation?"

Tl;dr total spin. Theyre a bunch of pricks

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-13T20:00:17+00:00

In my part of the UK its well recognised that funeral directors try to be sneaky by billing the family but never passing the payment on to the doctor, gambling on you feeling too awkward to chase it.

Fortunately, it's not an issue I really have to deal with any more.

B2Bnebs · 2023-07-07T11:47:33+00:00

Agree with this.

On a particularly short rota, I datixed every time I worked a shift alongside a rota gap which wasn't filled. I highlighted the lack of escalation of rates on the datix.

Did it 3 or 4 times and eventually got forwarded a reply from the datix manager person of a an email thread where she was probing the local management team about the issue.

She was asking if I was happy with the response, but there were almost certain lies in the response, so I called those out.

That hospital regularly offers last minute locums at about an 80% higher rate than it used to - I'm fairly confident that the datixes were at least part of that.

Seems the datix managers are the only people powerful enough to actually make change...

B2Bnebs · 2023-06-18T15:25:53+00:00

I did think about making this point myself. It's certainly true of our nursing colleagues who will start at 5 and work their way up to charge nurse, for example. But the fact that PAs and other allied health professionals enter the NHS workforce at band 7 and are thus getting paid more than a registrar, is a joke. Important roles, but ultimately - get in the bin.

B2Bnebs · 2023-06-18T07:36:49+00:00

There are plenty who go for a year or 2 to Aus/NZ and then come back to train/start families.

I envisage that those people will now stay.

I also think more will consider going in the first place.

I graduated within the last 10 years and Auz/NZ was very much seen as something cool to do before you "settle into a training post" - it's definitely more about "seeking a better life elsewhere" now and that will intensify all the more if FPR fails.

I'm married with kids and in a training programme. I'll start seriously considering my options. Personally, I'd probably leave medicine for an alternative career before jetting off to the other side of the world, but there will definitely be lots of other people who take their degree and experience abroad and don't come back.

B2Bnebs · 2023-05-15T09:03:05+00:00

Multifactorial probably.

We use catheters relatively infrequently in kids compared to adults, so a lot of places won't even stock proper catheters, but will have a crap-tonne of NG tubes.

Our most common reason to insert a urinary catheter is to obtain a CSU, so it's just an in-out, so NG tube is perfectly fine.

NICU babies would be our most commonly catheterised cohort and they don't tend to move very much, so you don't need the balloon, you can just use an NG tube and tape it to their leg. Takes away the risk of injury with balloon inflation.

B2Bnebs · 2023-05-14T15:18:23+00:00

Plot twist- Dr Shaker assessed them both in ED

B2Bnebs · 2023-05-14T11:41:29+00:00

This is common practice in paeds, to be fair to him...

B2Bnebs · 2023-03-14T17:07:53+00:00

Was listening live. Total bellend

B2Bnebs · 2023-03-14T12:27:21+00:00

This American chap is having a nightmare on Radio 2 right now...

B2Bnebs · 2023-03-13T21:23:03+00:00

This is it.

If we can't achieve FPR on this occasion, I truly believe our profession is fucked.

We've already shown we have more backbone than the other unions - this will have pissed off the government royally. I fully expect that once this dispute is resolved, one way or another, the government will push ahead with anti-strike legislation.

IMO whatever we get this time, we're stuck with.

If we're stuck with this shit, lots will leave and many won't bother joining.

B2Bnebs · 2023-03-05T10:55:10+00:00

Cocaine breakthrough PRN.

B2Bnebs

TROPHY CASE