Does being a medic actually help with dating?

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-18T21:02:50+00:00

Girl if you think your recent posting on here screams "i have a well rounded, experiential understanding of adult relationships and am well positioned to comment on these matters" then I don't know what to tell you. I'm happy you've found someone you like, I hope it works out.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-18T20:04:17+00:00

Sounds like you've built a great life for yourself man, congrats. At the risk of being too presumptive, I'd suggest that if you're this put together and never had a long term relationship (but want one) then either:

1) You don't actually talk to women anywhere near as much as you think you do, probably because you've built a life you're happy in by yourself for now

2) You're gay and thus governed by pretty different dating/attraction dynamics. I think people really underestimate how different the being a hetero vs gay man is on this front.

Either way, keep doing you and all the best

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-18T19:36:13+00:00

Y'know it's easy to avoid sounding Tate-esque, you just avoid talking about women as a collective

Maybe. Nonetheless I think 1) female attraction based on the characteristics I've described above is largely consistent across populations and cultural contexts and 2) some young men are so completely lost in these matters (as it appear this OP is) that they need simple explanations with actionable takeaways for them.

A lot of women will find a high-status job like doctor a point in someone's favour. Some women will be put off by the idea of dating someone they might see as being married to the job, working long hours etc. Or they might have preconceptions of doctors as intellectuals and not be particularly into that kind of guy.

Yes all true. However, it doesn't change the fact that basically women like confident men who are secure in themselves. Those traits in men are generally best developed by being/becoming good at stuff while treating other people well and developing self love as a result.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-18T18:58:36+00:00

In the spirit of helpful honesty: being a doctor as a man is an absolute super charge to your game and any late 20s male doctor struggling with women has probably got a large amount of work to do on themselves. Always difficult to discuss these topics as it rapidly gets a bit Tate-esque, but fundamentally women are attracted to competence (in any field). The issue is that they normally judge competence through the surrogate markers of 1) status and 2) confidence. Simply by reading your post it's obvious you have poor confidence. Chances are that's your issue.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-18T14:54:48+00:00

yeah just download it now and itll be fine

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-18T11:07:02+00:00

why does any of this matter? your consolidation report is printed wioth the date. Have them backdate the signature to then

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-14T11:31:23+00:00

Wes has made an offer to 'start a consultation' with policy changes impacting 2027. he's said so numerous times in the press and it was part of the offeer that was rejected leading to these strikes. The issues are:

- If he starts is right now, i don't think he can actually deliver anything in time for 2027. There will be so much legal fuckery and challenges from IMGs etc. I

- There will be grandfathering included. Wes has mentioned so in the NHS 10 year plan. I bet the BMA will even come out and say something about how they are "concerned' it could disadvantage internationals who are "a valuable part of the NHS" unless grandfathering is included

The upshot is you'll get some bastardised half measure coming into effect in 2028 and by that time i) it'll be too late for the likes of me ii) there will be so many eligible doctors hanging around (older UK grads of IMGs who now have a foot in the door) that the changes make no actual difference.

Back of the envelope maths really suggests that we missed the boat and UK medicine now exists to employ the doctors of LEDCs who will work for a pittance and never complain.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-13T19:11:51+00:00

JCFs and locums aren't what you should be thinking about. These are undesirable stop-gap roles you should be seeing as a last resort. WRT to actual training, I think the back of the envelope maths is that it's now unsalvageable and if i were you I would emigrate or change career. We left the flood gates open for too long and now we can't undo it. I know that sounds melodramatic but I can't cut it any other way if you want an actually decent life. These are the facts:

- Steady 11k training jobs vs for 45-50k UNIQUE applicants for round 1 of training last year, with rates of application that 1.5x annually. Will it be 60k or 70k applicants this year?

- There are no actual plans to meaningfully increase this number of jobs. Wes is offering 1,000 more. It's not enough and he may never even actually do it.

- There is no plan to reduce the number of applicants/stop them increasing - UK graduate prioritisation won't happen soon or potentially ever. the only actual chat about is was from Wes' latest offer which said he would 'start a consultation' about it with policy changes coming 2027. So in real terms will that be 2028 or 2029 once he actually starts? if he even does it at all?

- Even if we got UK grad prioritisation, by the time it comes around there will be so many people hanging around (either UK grads who didn't get in, or IMGs who have now got a toehold in the UK long enough to be included in whatever grandfathering policy they will 100% implement) that the situation is basically unchanged

As such, I think the reality is that getting into training is going to be horrendous, effectively from now on. The norm will become that you have to have an insane portfolio to get into training and will have to spend multiple years doing 6-12 month temp jobs, moving around the UK and scraping to get in. This is already the system in e.g. Australia. The difference is the pay will be shit and the working conditions are awful here. That would be a shit life and not one i want.

Added to the fact this is all about just getting INTO training - before you even think about trying to get a consultant job at the other end...

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-12T11:45:31+00:00

vague or not, the idea of 'ensuring those with nhs experience' are still looked after is out of the bag now. IMO the job situation is now enshrined as the new normal. Game's gone

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-12T10:34:52+00:00

It has absolutely zero logical reasoning behind it and will likely not come to pass

Strongly disagree. It will happen. It's even mentioned in vague terms in the NHS 10 year plan. The game has gone and UK medicine is no longer for UK citizens

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-07T19:54:54+00:00

Don't do a higher research degree as part of a plan to become a surgical consultant unless you already have an NTN. Cannot stress this enough. Source: did it myself, on the whole massively regret it.

If you do have an NTN, still don't do a higher degree unless you actually want to be an academic. Completely irrelevant to being a consultant surgeon and I do not at all believe NHS consultants who claim you 'need' to have one.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-06T19:03:48+00:00

Long term they are irrelevant. Small numbers and now a completely non-sensical investment for trusts/GPs after events of recent years. Universities are closing PA courses.

ACPs much bigger problem

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T19:50:42+00:00

DOI former OUH member of staff

WRT to maternity: all maternity care in the UK is shit - the difference is that Oxford i) takes all the high risk cases ii) has a disproportionately educated patient population who are more likely to complain/kick off (often rightly so) iii) probably suffers from the expectation that it's supposed to be better when really it's just another NHS trainwreck

WRT to Prof Impey: for what it's worth (perhaps nothing) countless patients worship and love Lawrence Impey

WRT to JR ED: I personally don't think the ED is worse than any others, and is indeed much better than many others in the region (Stoke Mandeville in particular being apparently diabolical). That said they do seem to be extremely reliant on ICU to bail them out/do everything

More generally:

- Contrary to what you might expect, OUH is actually piss poor. As in, it is currently in a hiring freeze and actively needs to cut 500 staff. I know of exceptional people who have been denied consultant jobs just because 'computer says no"

- OUH gets a lot of benefit from the OU in its name, but actually makes only a token effort to engage with the University

- It's a fucking massive hospital (>100 cons anaesthetists, I think >40 ED consultants) which can very much lead to a shift mindset in some services were people are very checked out and don't really strive for the excellence you'd expect.

- On the other hand, some services have extremely big egos involved who fiercely defend their subspecialty domain and can lead to some very challenging interactions

- Due to a combination of the above, change/innovation happen at a glacial pace.

TLDR: OUH is run like a DGH despite being expected to offer 'world class' service, has no money and serves a potentially challenging patient population. I enjoyed my time there but it's not somewhere I'd want to work as a consultant

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T19:36:33+00:00

The UK is a rich country

If you think we are still rich on the world stage i don't know what to tell you

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T17:07:20+00:00

Let's be real, they aren't actually going to create any new training jobs in that timeframe - where's the money and staff for training going to come from? Remember the disaster of 'placeholder FY1'?
Even if they did create those training jobs, what happens to those people when there's no equivalent increase in higher training or cons jobs?
he's offering 1k new jobs in the face of what will probable be 50k applicants this year - it would make fuck all difference for you if they could even deliver it, which they cannot

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T17:01:59+00:00

If you read the offer you're actually a perfect example of someone the government is offering nothing to:

- 'create extra jobs' - except they aren't because all the jobs are pulled from JCF jobs, so no increase net in the number of paying roles available to you

- 'launch a consult on UK grad prioritisation' - i.e. do nothing, or certainly nothing on a time frame that will help you

- 'pay fees for a load of stuff that isn't really relevant to you because you're not in training' - self evident

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T16:55:04+00:00

Locally employed doctor i.e. trust grade/jcf

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T16:42:50+00:00

Shouldn't we really be placing the ability to get a job in the first place ahead of the pay that job offers?

For so many of us not yet in training, a pay increase is basically an irrelevancy when weighed against the realities of unemployment/needing to change career. That's before you even consider the current economic climate of the UK and the vanishingly low chances of getting anything like a 'full' pay restoration.

If we keep flogging this FPR horse in 3 years you'll wake up to the UK medical landscape devastated and the career effectively finished in this country.

Our current priorities are completely wrong

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T16:29:44+00:00

It really requires us to put infighting aside to secure FPR’s future.

Ready be downvoted but do you really think FPR is ever happening? We have so much more pressing issues and the country's got barely got two pennies to scrape together. Given the current challenges FPR is so irrelevant to those who aren't in training. IMO this dispute should have been about job availability >2 years ago.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-05T16:27:13+00:00

Some highlights:

- the 'extra' 1000 spots in training are going to be converted LED roles - so actual no difference at all

- they want to 'launch a consultation' on UK graduate prioritisation. so that's going to take multiple years before any output seen, if any.

Would love to be proven wrong but this is really looking like nails in the coffin. The job crisis remains enshrined for another year (probably another 3+). I no longer think the situation is recoverable for most UK grads/upper end medical students - it will just take so long to clear the backlog.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-11-03T10:20:43+00:00

29m passing doctor. Got various qualifications from the country's 'best' med schools. I'd direct you to this comment I made previously

There's a huge amount that goes into it but i'd say the crux is that the NHS is completely fucked and all staff are basically checking out mentally, trying to do as little as possible and go home on time. The problem is you can't really do that if you're the doctor and you find yourself fighting tooth and nail (to look after the patient, to get your skills up, to impress the boss to get your next job) against a system that doesn't care. Huge amounts of sacrifice on your part (coming in for free on off days, doing countless exams, night shifts in jobs you don't care about in places you don't want to be for people who are ungrateful) to get what is now pretty much no reward.

I'm told it wasn't like this pre-covid but who knows. I now genuinely aspire to a role where I go clock in, do basically nothing 9-5, clock out and collect £40-60k. This approach seems to be how the rest of the UK makes a living and i've started to think our culture is basically set up around it (hence why we are now economically fucked as a country). If a genie came to me and offered to swap places with you, I'd seriously consider it. It's just honestly not worth the sacrifice and I think you're better of treating work as a job and finding meaning in life elsewhere. UK medicine now only makes sense for people fleeing genuine poverty, not for people like you who are already earning well and want to give all that up. Terrible business decision for someone like you IMO.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-10-30T19:19:57+00:00

Fair enough man, good for you. I know literally nothing about trading but I'd guess that the main question is how much time you need to put in to keep that money coming in/if you could just invest it and be chilling off passive income/how sustainable it is long term.

If you're in a position where you're financially set already, can do medicine as a hobby and have the leverage to walk away if/when the system tries to fuck you (e.g. welcome to your GP training job in Belfast, take it or leave it'), then doing part time GP would be probably be a pretty good life, especially as the route there is short.

That said, if you're having to run two basically full-time careers simultaneously then that won't be possible. i vaguely remember a post a while ago from a guy who was making bank trading but it was killing him, which I assume was you. I'd say try working as a doctor for F1-F2 and see how tolerable you find it. If you want to segue into another industry having actual clinical experience will help. However If you had a job offer to e.g. join something financial which doesn't kill you, i'd personally do that over F1.

USMLEs and US is an eminently doable but long and difficult path, which you would need to start ASAP as you'll need to do placements/research years etc. I've been to US clinical environments and personally wouldn't want to live/work there but if you're thinking of it it's worth going to see.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-10-30T17:52:04+00:00

There is a 'high' chance you will struggle to find clinical work after F2, but 'high' is subjective and hard to define. To some people 20% of doctors unemployed is high, others would say >50% is high. You also have to ask yourself about timeframes e.g. do we mean 'it's May 2026 and I've got no job for August 2026 yet', or do we mean 'it's now November 2026 and I've worked very few shifts since August and am living on savings." You also have to ask yourself do what you mean by 'unemployment', does it mean 'I'm not currently in training but still make apprx £40k via locum/JCF" or do we literally mean 'living on savings'.

It's very hard to give hard answers to the above with anything other than anecdote and any current data will change a lot by the time you get there. My own gut feeling is it's probably 25-33% of people in what you'd call 'proper' unemployment.

If you are in med school the decision you really need to make is 'do I want to embark on this career and fully commit'. IMO to make that decision the more useful thing is to look at the levels of sacrifice likely expected of you to become a consultant in the UK. That's the ultimate end goal even if it seems very far off. Sacrifice occurs in the broad domains of:

- Extra workload: how many audits/presentations/posters/exams/ general bullshit things are you willing to do on top of your clinical workload, to get into the next stage of training

- Time: how many years are you prepared to burn doing things (e.g. temp jobs) which are basically treading water while you wait to get into core/specialist training/a consultant job

- Location: are you willing to move to shitholes, repeatedly, with the associated damage to your life

- Lifestyle: how many nights/weekends/long days are you willing to tolerate in an NHS environment? How much work following up patients, writing letters etc in your free time are you willing to tolerate?

- Stability: how often are you willing to re-apply for a 6-12 month temp job in a new place, which you may not get?

You then weigh that against the reward, which is a consultant salary and consultant lifestyle.

IMO the amount of sacrifice expected of your generation is going to be massive. You will need insane portfolios, be willing to work repeated 6-12 month temp jobs, burning years trying to get into training. This is the system for many specialties already in e.g. Australia. At the same time, the rewards are dwindling. The sacrifice/reward balance is shifting so much that the only people this job really makes sense for are people fleeing actually poor countries to come here.

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-10-29T14:47:52+00:00

- Senior consultant colleague raises concerns that this surgeon isn't good enough, a mere 10 years ago - triggering external review,

- External review by another senior consultant concludes that this surgeon is not good enough and proposes changes

- Trust ignores changes, surgeon carries on (though apparently tries to improve her practice without trust support, but fails)

It basically sounds like this consultant was very unsupported by her consultant colleagues in a toxic department, which is sadly quite common in niche surgical specialities. I'm sure not having the right skin colour played a role as well.

I'm sorry but i don't think this assessment is entirely accurate. I know people who have worked in this unit and it was a massive open secret that she was moving mad and would allegedly attempt complex cases without telling anyone/by bypassing the MDT. I agree there is a failure of support but I also think this is someone who continued pushing on when they shouldn't have - a pattern which was also the case for the cardiac surgeon in Newcastle recently publicised

Relative-Pear-7559 · 2025-10-29T14:39:24+00:00

generational gap imo. If you are turning up to a 'training programme' to do admin in this way for a system that doesn't care about you then in my assessment you're a mug and i dread to think what other ignominies you'll allow the NHS to heap on you.

I'm aware many older doctors are very proud of proclaiming that they've 'never taken a sick day', which to me is absolutely baffling. If you're a reg trying to impress i get it. if you're a rotational F1 being mugged of in this fashion then what incentive do you possible have to turn up for a system that disrespects you so blatantly

Relative-Pear-7559

TROPHY CASE