Wednesday 30 July 2008

Another one leaves the flock


So, Dr Holly Branson has quit working as a junior doctor to work for her Dad instead.

I can’t say I blame her. In fact, I’m actually surprised that she’s remained in medicine for as long as she has. Why on earth would anyone want to work as a junior hospital doctor (for £21k p.a.) when their father is one of the richest men in the world? It seems that Holly has seen sense and has got out.

I wish her all the best (though I very much doubt she’ll need my good wishes).

10 comments:

GrumpyRN said...

Good luck to the girl! The only problem is in a little while she (an FY1) may be telling senior experienced doctors what to do if her dad gets his way. Scary.

Anonymous said...

What of the ~£300,000 her training cost?

Dr Michael Anderson said...

Grumpy RN - I thought this was a little strange too. Time will tell...

Renal - what about it?

Bright-eyed said...

Hey hey, literally found your blog today and am enjoying reading through it from the beginning (sad but true - I'm up to last august and your first month in new job).

Just thought I'd let u know that I'm loving the posts - the female 'encounters' crack me up :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah renal? Does she too, "owe" people her life as well because she did medicine as opposed to something else? I forget docs aren't supposed to be able to leave if they are treated badly or unhappy, they are indentured slaves aren't they? comrade.

Anonymous said...

What of the cost?

If it costs £300,000 to train us and each of us takes a highly sought after place at medical school that could go to any one of a 9 or 10 others. Do we owe anything back?

Dr Michael Anderson said...

Bright-Eyed - Thank you very much and welcome. I hope you continue to enjoy reading

Renal - You've got me thinking about what we "owe" to the government that paid for our training. I don't have time at the moment but I'll collect my thoughts and do a proper post about it when I'm not on call.

Dr Michael Anderson said...

and one more thing, I'm convinced that though his career, Richard Branson has paid enough money to the government in taxes to pay for his daughter's training several times over and I'm almost as convinced that through her future taxes, Holly will pay back the money spent on her training, but, like I say I'll post about this in more detail in the next few days.

Anonymous said...

You know, I read on the Mail's website all the comments about how slack she is for leaving, and that the training is so expensive, and blah blah.
To be honest, I think that people forget that ALL training at university has a dropout rate. It might be that training a junior doctor is a high cost exercise, but, to be honest, since this is LIFE we are talking about, some people WILL fall off the ladder, or by the wayside, or whatever your metaphor of choice.
That makes it the same as all other university courses in that respect.
Also, Michael has it right. RB has payed plenty of tax, and so will she. And so have I, and so will I.

GrumpyRN- I'm not sure that's how it will work. I think that it is more likely her skills will be utilised in analysing information about healthcare provision rather than actually telling people what they should be doing. And I know someone who at her age and level was a government healthcare advisor, sitting in on or advising some interesting committees, so...

Anonymous said...

Good on her.

Wish more of my House Officers looked like that, AND she is bare below the elbows :)