Handed in notice (salaried GP)

After just under 6 months of being a salaried GP I have today handed in my notice. Having written my notice several times over the past few weeks, and my partner keeping tally of how late I was getting home and how unhappy, enough was enough.

I left work at 2030 today rather than a duty day finish of 1830. I still hadn’t done half my admin, when I left. The icing on the cake though, my ‘fuck this’ moment came earlier in the day.

I sat in a consultation with a couple both mid 60s who were angry and frustrated, and venting at me. I listened to them, took note but it all had a growing sense of Deja vu. When I heard them out, and there complaints about not being listened too, or anything explained to them, I trawled back over a year and found my letter written to general surgeons and gastro and I suddenly remembered using my lunch to write this letter. It was a very good letter, so I re read that letter to them paragraph by paragraph… and then asked them how they had not been listened too or things not explained to them, then I asked them to leave.

There is not enough time to diligently review every Med’s request ensuring compliance and monitoring, there is not enough time to respond to every task, there is not enough time to look carefully at every returned letter, analyse every blood set and look at the trends and consider its implications. Instead it more closely resembles a furious clicking frenzy to ensure everything is filed and prescribed. I don’t feel safe, nor do I prescribe to the cultural acceptance that the doctor stays late, I can’t with good conscious leave however until I’ve ensured the vast majority is done, queue moral blackmail.

The pay for the exposure and unpaid stress is pitiful, yes I have peers who finish on time but they generally push work on, push things down the line or are so efficient there bordering on impolite, or just simply don’t deal with the problems or fully investigate the issues. The doctors I know that do are there until late, unable to step away.

My practice are supportive, and genuinely a pleasure to work with, but the system is so broken. They don’t want me to leave, but sadly I don’t want to have to have to repeatedly ask to improve my conditions if it just means I’m seen as not pulling my weight.

I don’t know what’s next, but it won’t be as a doctor in the NHS