If you’ve ever spent your morning commute daydreaming about starting afresh with your career, this feature is for you. Each Monday, we speak to someone from a different profession to discover what it’s really like. Today we speak to Dr George Hawche, a GP at the Fulham Medical Centre in west London…
A salaried GP working full time can expect to earn… anywhere between £80,000-£95,000, with GP partners often earning more. Locum or self-employed GPs can earn anywhere between £60 and £110 an hour.
NHS pension contributions are comprised of… 12.5% employee contributions and 23.7% employer contributions. As a self-employed GP partner, I pay both employee and employer contributions.
I think the work I do is fairly remunerated but… resident doctors are not paid fairly at all. Young doctors are now qualifying with huge debts and will be paying their loans back at extortionate rates for decades, so their starting salary needs to take that into account.
I always worry about making a mistake… It’s people’s lives in my hands, but I mitigate this by making sure I ask the right questions to each patient, understand exactly what they have come in with, rule out red flag symptoms and signs, and strongly safety net them so that if their symptoms change or develop, they know they can return for reassessment.
My biggest lessons have been to adapt my communication style… more readily, take my time a little bit more and ask for help and feedback from colleagues in a multidisciplinary team setting.
There’s no truth in old wives’ tales… When feeling unwell, it’s really important to hydrate well, rest when needed and eat a healthy, balanced diet full of vitamins, minerals, complex carbohydrates and protein to allow the body to heal.
My go-to medicine to get rid of a cold is… honey, lemon, ginger and paracetamol (as long as people don’t overdose on this).
You…
