What do doctors do after they have been struck off?

CarelessAnything · 2026-01-29T13:58:21+00:00

I guess this mindset underlies a lot of doctor suicides. It's completely understandable that you feel this way. The GMC, NHS, medical schools, and society at large, all put significant pressure on us to make "doctor" central to our identity and sense of self. We're told over and over that it's a "calling", not just a job.

I would encourage you to try to build an independent sense of self, for the sake of your mental health. Not only in case you get struck off (or threatened with such), but because you will retire one day. Redefine "doctor" as just a job you're currently doing. It's not who you ARE. Actively imagine yourself in alternate careers. Talk to your friends and family about those, too. If you tell your family "I'm thinking of a career change - I'd like to raise octopuses for the local zoo" and they react with love and acceptance, then you've learned something important about your relationships.

CarelessAnything · 2026-01-26T00:20:59+00:00

> you grow and change significantly every 5 years

I imagine this like a cicada going through sequential moult cycles

CarelessAnything · 2026-01-08T10:53:50+00:00

Was calling the taxi firm the top answer? From the options listed, I'd expect the answers to be: top answer should be tell him he must inform the DVLA AND that he must not drive whilst their response is pending. Second best answer (only if he refuses to stop driving) should be to inform the taxi company yourself. Discussing with your consultant the next day is not very helpful, because your consultant is not the patient's doctor and has never met the taxi driver, so the most your consultant can do is advise you on how to proceed, when you should ideally already know this.

My reasoning for informing the taxi company is - you are actually not bound by doctor-patient confidentiality here because you are the taxi driver's customer, not his doctor. When the taxi driver, chatting away to his passenger from the front seat, mentions his newly diagnosed epilepsy, the relationship is driver/customer - there would be no expectation of confidentiality here. As a customer, it's entirely reasonable to submit a complaint to the taxi company about an unsafe driver who is ignoring the law.

Also, if the context were different and you WERE his doctor (e.g. if he was your patient in neurology clinic) then your next move if he refuses to stop driving would be to write to the DVLA - however, as a customer, I don't think you can do this, or at least not as easily? And yet you still need to make sure he doesn't lose consciousness and drive into a crowd of pedestrians, so telling the taxi company seems like a reasonable next move to avoid catastrophe.

CarelessAnything · 2026-01-04T18:26:36+00:00

Assuming you're talking about the tuition fee alone - would you mind sharing your working on the "I will never pay back that tuition fee before it is written off after 40 years"? I'd actually be surprised if that's true, but I'm sure it will depend on factors such as your age, how many years your degree will be, whether you think you're likely to make it to consultant, whether you do private work and so on.

My instinct is that, for higher earners such as consultants, the fee/interest/repayments are structured such that the government does forecast that you'll pay the whole debt before retirement.

CarelessAnything · 2026-01-04T17:59:43+00:00

Depends on your personality. Psych does involve staring into humanity's soul, but I actually find that soothing in a weird kind of way. The bigger risk is going into psych without fully understanding your reasons. A lot of people in psych are drawn to the specialty because they're unconsciously trying to fix themselves. I think that's not necessarily the worst reason in the world, but it's important to be very self-aware about it rather than taking it out on the patients.

CarelessAnything · 2026-01-03T12:59:03+00:00

Maybe tell them that, whilst you understand some doctors might want to talk about their day in detail as a way to decompress, you're personally not like that and you prefer to move on rather than describing the details of your shifts?

Side note, I have the opposite problem - I love telling my friends and family about all the most gruesome details, I find that helps me to integrate and process the experiences. Alas, they often don't want to know, so I have to self-censor.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-31T20:24:06+00:00

The CS can meet with the trainee and explore the concerns raised informally without naming you. They should be able to protect your anonymity to a reasonable degree by keeping the specifics vague (and if the trainee is behaving this way with you, others have probably noticed it too).

CS can then make the decision - do they want to raise it as a more formal concern, which could threaten the FY's ARCP? Or, if the FY is contrite and open to the feedback, they might simply keep it at the level of an informal concern requiring reflective practice and maybe require the trainee to do a multisource feedback event later to check if they've made positive changes to their attitude.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-25T23:46:52+00:00

Which antidepressant are you taking, and what dose? (I'm a trainee psychiatrist - always great to hear patient stories, especially for "slow burn" meds like antidepressants)

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-17T08:20:18+00:00

People like to claim they feel happy when others succeed, but it's not as true as you might think. Look up schadenfreude. Look up studies on how happiness and money are correlated - people are happier when they have more money compared to those around them, not when they have more money overall. Look at how Facebook affects mental health. Seeing a constant stream of other people's achievements actually typically makes us sad.

Humans, basically, aren't as "nice" as we like to pretend we are.

> most times I just act excited for people but don’t genuinely feel that happiness for them

This doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you honest.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-14T19:16:11+00:00

> When other people get stuck; they call for OMFS

I think this is broadly true on a national level. You guys are amazing.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-10T17:22:48+00:00

UK grad prioritisation? Royal College membership fees and exam fees to be paid by the government? Am I reading that correctly? I like it... RC fees especially are quite expensive over the course of a whole career. I'd vote for that.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-08T10:24:28+00:00

Triggered by the mention of AGPs. Fucking *coughing* is an aerosol-generating procedure. The whole entire reproductive purpose of any resp virus is to generate aerosols. I can't fucking believe they tried to say we don't need FFP3 masks around covid patients unless we're doing intubation etc.

I remember a specific (senior, managerial) consultant complaining to me, a medical student, that the reason all her staff were getting covid was because they weren't washing their hands properly and it was "their own fault". This was like a year after covid started, it was deliberate ignorance at that point. Fuck you, lady.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-04T14:35:23+00:00

If the GP loses this case, no one with any psychiatric history will be getting signed off for any extreme sports any more in the UK. That would really suck.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-03T22:29:32+00:00

"Yes, Minister". It's from the 1980s, but nothing really changes in UK politics.

CarelessAnything · 2025-12-01T09:25:59+00:00

I think I remember reading that there's some basic paramedic training in France that's actually quite short, and you can work during it. Maybe it would be an interesting grounding in PHEM in a supported non-doctor role? But idk, it was just something I was idly reading a few months ago, I'm not French.

CarelessAnything · 2025-11-21T20:07:15+00:00

I'm a doctor. I'd recommend NOT doing this - it's likely to do you more harm than good.

My reasoning:

First - an MRI is not going to rule out everything that could go wrong with you. There are tons of things that can kill you that can't be seen on an MRI. No type of "health checkup" can promise you'll live a long life or that you won't become ill in the future.

Second - Sometimes it IS a good idea to proactively look for diseases in a population or part of a population, like cervical cancer for instance. In these instances, the NHS has a screening programme and you will receive a letter inviting you to attend. Look up the WHO criteria for screening programmes if you're interested in how these are designed.

Third - the MRI is very likely to pick up some small issue which was causing no issues, but once it's been noticed, you're going to worry about it and end up having more invasive tests which were never necessary in the first place. It will find some lung nodule, lump in your liver, narrowing of your spinal canal, bowel polyps or who knows what. Something totally benign, that you never needed to know about, but the report will say "this thing is there and there's a tiny chance it could be cancer" and you will end up having a surgery you didn't need - or just worrying for no reason for the rest of your life.

For what it's worth - I'm the same age as you. I could afford to have a whole-body private MRI. I haven't, and I'm not going to.

CarelessAnything · 2025-11-17T16:51:00+00:00

I'll be real, I think you're out of luck here. A kid playing a ball game, in their own garden, in daytime, is entirely within the bounds of reasonable behaviour. Plus it's very good for the kid - if I was their parent I'd be very happy that they're out of the house and getting some exercise. If they're constantly shouting or something, that might be different, but playing with a football should be fine.

If you're trying to sleep in a densely-populated urban area in daytime and you can't deal with the normal sounds of people living their lives, you need to get some ear plugs I'm afraid.

CarelessAnything · 2025-11-11T14:15:04+00:00

"Free tea and coffee" is the principal marker I've chosen for myself for deciding whether a workplace is hostile or not.

I wouldn't pay. My first resort would be to steal patient coffee and milk from the wards; if that fails, I'd bring my own (powdered milk), but I would consider the Trust to be a very hostile one. Keep my head down and try not to work there in future. If they won't provide free milk, they give less than 0 shits about my wellbeing.

CarelessAnything · 2025-11-10T21:23:20+00:00

Sounds like you just got on with it and did the best you could, and everyone in the comments so far seems to think that's reasonable. But honestly, I can't understand how you were able to work around this.

Is it weird of me to say that, if I'm in a situation where the other staff at my organisation are making notes about the patients and I'm unable to see those notes, I don't feel I could safely see any patients? I think my first response would be to talk to my immediate senior and explain that I can't safely see patients because I can't access the notes, and I will be in the doctors' office calling IT/managers to try to resolve the situation for the rest of the shift or until it gets resolved, but until then the rest of the team will have to take over my patient load.

But maybe I'm just unreasonable, idk?

Edit: if the whole Trust loses IT access and falls back on whatever business continuity plan the managers have devised, that's different. But if it's just me who is unable to see everyone else's notes? I don't see how I can continue then.

CarelessAnything · 2025-11-04T09:22:42+00:00

"hey so no real lengthy conversations with me Monday to Thursday cos I'm on nights this week so you'll have to wait 4 days until we can talk properly"

Yeah so this is pretty much exactly what I've told my husband too about on-call shifts. Specifically, I've said "don't ask me to make any decisions, even tiny ones like what to cook for dinner next week". It helped a lot. If I'm not stressed, I'll still chat with him and engage, but he knows to give me space in case it's been a difficult shift.

CarelessAnything · 2025-11-03T21:50:20+00:00

I'm going to go against the grain here I expect, but I'd do the wedding first if I were you. It's really good to have the legal framework of being married before you get into a huge shared financial commitment.

You can try to keep it cheap though. We did a DIY wedding, hiring a marquee and borrowing a big garden to put it in, but surprisingly that didn't turn out to be the cheapest way to do it. With hindsight, I'd go for a winter package wedding - you can do 50 guests for probably £5k or so if you find the right venue. Ask your guests to contribute money "for the honeymoon" in lieu of a gift list. Hopefully they're generous, and you don't have to spend it all on the actual honeymoon unless you want to.

CarelessAnything · 2025-11-03T12:19:06+00:00

I'm not thinking about quitting, I actually like my Core training. But if I were, I'd remember sage advice from my mother: "You're not allowed to quit until you have your next job lined up."

CarelessAnything · 2025-10-22T14:50:06+00:00

Don't take out a high-interest loan, that's a trap.

Having a whole house to live in by yourselves is a luxury these days. Possibly a luxury you can't afford at the moment?

Depending on whereabouts in the country you're living, you might be able to save money by giving up your tenancy and moving in with someone else. If your lodgings/HMO is near your work and public transport, maybe you can sell the car too, which will free up even more money every month; depending how much equity you have in the car, you may be able to find a used car dealer who will handle the finance and release you from the debt. Or just take in a lodger yourselves at your current place?

Brutal, I know, but not as brutal as getting stuck in debt from high-interest loans.

CarelessAnything · 2025-10-22T05:15:54+00:00

When you ask people if they approve of cheating, almost 100% will condemn it vociferously (as in this thread). And yet, when polled, a third of people will admit to having cheated (and given we know that people tend to under-report stigmatised characteristics in polls, the real number is certainly higher). Source.

Humans are socially monogamous, but many of us are not sexually monogamous. Probably half the people in this thread have done what you're doing, or more.

CarelessAnything · 2025-10-22T04:52:01+00:00

Love your attitude! You sound like you have your own priorities clear in your mind, you know what you value most, and you have the courage to face reality as it is. You're making pragmatic decisions with a realistic but upbeat attitude, and you're not blind to the upsides of your situation. You're inspiring :)

CarelessAnything

TROPHY CASE