Shocking stories of working as a junior doctor

I am shocked, horrified, sad and feeling daunted about starting work next year, after reading the posts at http://doctors4hospitals.blogspot.com. Though to be honest, I really shouldn't be... it's not that I haven't been aware of those problems... but to hear them described by SO MANY, in such disillusioned, disheartened and acrimonious tones is really hitting it home to me what things will be like. Another thing that really strikes me is the huge gulf between the reality and the public's understanding of these issues... where the public generally think that if you're a doctor, you've 'got it all' and 'have it made'... (and as a result when doctors complain they are just 'being greedy and want more').

A couple of quotes from the posts on the site:

"I am an intern and I have been driven close to the edge this year. Amongst other things, the amount of unpaid overtime I have had to work just to keep my patients alive is staggering.Rather than being paid automatically for overtime you have done, you have to grovel for and justify it. Nothing was more demoralising than when someone from medical administration called me to say that, despite giving reasons for working the overtime I was claiming, including thorough clinical details and patient identification numbers, my consultant had refused to authorise my overtime pay. He had crossed out the hours I had claimed and simply written "not agreed to". I think the whole hospital might have heard me yelling and cursing. It's not even about the money- as if the meagre pittance of a few hours overtime would make any difference- rather, about being valued for the hard work and long hours I put in. Personally, I hadn't "agreed" to those overtime hours as well. I had much better things to do, such as going home to my family. I stayed back because my patients needed me, and there arent enough doctors and hours in a day to attend to their pressing medical needs and the demands of their families in the 8am to 5pm shift that I'm paid for.At least one of my patients has died this year because we didnt have time for something as basic as properly managing his electrolytes. If we'd had more time, and if the relevant specialist unit wasnt full to the brim and could have taken him on, maybe he'd be alive today. I hate the medical system and the type of doctor it has turned me into; someone who cuts corners out of sheer necessity, and resents patients when they get sick at 4:45pm because I know I will have to either cut more corners, work overtime that will run me down and I wont get paid for, or hand them over to an equally stressed evening cover doctor who, come 10pm, will be faced with the same dilemma. Meanwhile patient expectations continue to climb, and I stay back until 11pm talking to a patient demanding to discharge herself because a nurse was too busy to bring her a cup of coffee. The stress really gets to me sometimes. It's not unusual for me to cry all the way home from work.I don't know how I will survive the rest of the year."

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"I identify with the comments of one of our more junior colleagues - the intern above.I too cannot stand both the doctor, and indeed the person, this system has forced me to be. I am now callous, cold, and judgemental. I am impatient with the hesitant or difficult patient in front of me when I know there are thirty more in the waiting room to go. I hate my work and my hospital, I distrust my referring colleagues and have NO faith in those who are supposed to be my administrators/managers (particularly when our HMO management consists of untrained, wet-behind the ears twenty somethings who haven't the foggiest idea which end of a stethescope is which). To be constantly operating on the brink of chaos and looking after the sickest of the sick is a tremendous burden personally, professionally, and psychologically. I too have cried often in anger, frustration and simply being strung out after too many hours on, with too many patients, too many acute issues with no support and a system which is adversarial, accusatory and defamatory. I have worked through times when the administrators don't know the difference between a neurosurgeon and a rheumatologist, a cardiothoracic doctor and a gastro-enterologist. To them they are gaps on a roster, and any name, irrespective of experience, training (a laughable concept) or ability will do.I am a fellow now. In the past ten years I have seen the system crumble, stress levels rise, the system lurch from one crisis to another, and the increasing hostilities (and assaults) from patients and families for issues I am powerless to control. These include waiting times, bed availabilities, standards of nursing care, charges for prescriptions, over crowded wards and clinics, and a hospital which has essentially been a building site since 2005 (with the bricks held on to the outside with chicken wire). My only advice to you is that you have the opportunity to get out now. The hospital experience is only getting worse, not better. There are plenty of other professions that will gladly welcome and reward a high achieving, intelligent, articulate individual such as one who has the skills to enter, and complete a medical degree. This one only serves to take its pound of flesh and devalue you at every opportunity.Me? Come February I'm gone (private interstate) too. W.A here I come!"