I’ve been a doctor for years – why am I still called a ‘junior’?

We’re often thought of as baby-faced, inexperienced and panic-stricken – but junior doctors are the backbone of the NHS, and a new campaign aims to see this reflected in our job title

Today marks the start of a campaign by the Royal Society of Medicine to abolish the terms “junior doctor” and “trainee doctor”. It is hoped that acknowledging doctors’ experience within their job title will be a cost-neutral way of boosting morale and giving them “the respect they deserve”. It would also help to ease public confusion around the terms, with many unaware that junior doctors are not students but fully qualified doctors undertaking training in their speciality of choice. They may have been working for 10 years, but remain “juniors” until they attain the rank of consultant.

One might wonder what all the fuss is about – after all, juniors exist in other professions, apparently without problem. A junior barrister will be so known until they take the silk and become a QC. But in a hospital, no other professions use the term. There are no junior radiographers, nurses or pharmacists. Abolishing the term for doctors would bring us in line with our colleagues. As one of the eponymous juniors who would be affected by this change, I welcome it. While the term junior doctor is a convenient, familiar and widely understood catch-all for the bewildering assortment of training grades that replaced the old system of house officers and registrars (which I believe worked well), it can also be too vague.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2zcGqrj