I did 168-hour weeks as doctor... but at least we

THE CRISIS of nearly two-thirds of junior doctors leaving the NHS within two years can be reversed by reverting to the longer working hours of the Eighties, says Britain’s leading intensive care expert.

Professor Hugh Montgomery, director of University College London’s Institute for Human Health and Performance, believes “super-smart” young medics have to be challenged more to stop the talent drain on the health service.

He claims being constantly on call to treat patients will allow them to learn and advance more than making them sit at a desk chasing test results for the first few years, as happens now.

As a junior doctor he says he worked a 168-hour week – on call almost 24/7 – but it was more fun than the practices brought in since then. And by going back to longer hours, fewer junior doctors would be needed, saving NHS money.

Prof Montgomery, who found the first fitness gene and is an authority on surviving intensive care, says: “I don’t think I would have had the career I have had without those years as a junior doctor working all those hours.

“I have kept doing this because I enjoy it and it does worry me that if it had been as it is now I might have said you know what, stuff this.”

He adds: “There is a level of disillusionment among junior doctors and it’s leading to people leaving in droves. We know from the last 18 months that 62 per cent of junior doctors left British medicine within two years.”

Prof Montgomery, who has written a medical thriller, Control, set in the Eighties using warped versions of his experiences as an intern, believes making junior doctors carry out mainly administrative tasks in hospitals is causing their disillusionment.

“We have a nuclear arms race to get into medical school, so you have to be super A-starred and have got to play hockey for England and run 19 charities,” he says. “These people are extraordinary. They are some of the most remarkable people you can meet. They go through GCSES and A levels, then six years of medical school and then come out with whacking debt, often in London it is £130,000 to £140,000, and they go into a life that you actually don’t have to be that smart to do.

“We know from a study in Birmingham that 72 per cent of a junior doctor’s life is at a computer chasing test results, and that is in no way rewarding.”

Prof Montgomery, married with sons Oscar, 16 and Fergus, 13, says: “With the new pay deal there are no salary rises, so you are stuck on a basic salary for five years, unable to pay off your debt and doing these dull, long days.”

Even with being constantly on call, he says the team environment made work fun. “We were part of a ‘firm’,” he says. “There was a consultant, a senior registrar, who was usually a man as medicine was male-dominated, a registrar, a senior house officer and a house officer, and you batted as a team.