I’m a doctor in private healthcare. Recently graduated and started a job in a “successful” clinic at the beginning of this year.
I’ve come to realise my standards of care and morals towards my patients are vastly different to those of the practice owners.
It seems to me that money is their top priority (not that they’d admit it), to the detriment of their employees and quite often their patients.
There are things I believe to be unethical, both towards patient care and staff care (nothing illegal), and know all my colleges feel the same about points I have raised.
I raised a long list of points to the manager last week, which I wished to discuss in hopes of bettering my own and my colleagues quality of life in this job, and hopes to better care towards patients by doing so.
Today I was called to a last minute meeting (after I was meant to have left for the day and I had a doctors appointment to go to after work).
The business owners show up late after having me held back by the manager, leaving us only 20 minutes to discuss all the points I had raised.
I went through topics as quickly as I could in this limited time, trying to overlook the frustration of the situation. Every query I raised was met with responses such as;
“well that’s your opinion, we don’t feel that way”
“We don’t think it’s unethical, that’s just your feelings”
“Other doctors work in this manor, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t”
and my personal favourite of the meeting; “you young and new graduates think you know it all, but you don’t”, (which was said by a co-owner not a fellow doctor).
I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle. I mentioned that I’m not the only practitioner who feels this way on certain topics, however that’s for those practitioners to discuss as I can’t speak for others. This was immediately turned into “You shouldn’t be going around spreading gossip about things you don’t like and changing their opinions to suit you. We have a courtesy system and you’re not to discuss your problems with the entire team, you’re to discuss it with who you have a problem with in private”
I mentioned that I was spreading nothing, these were discussions raised by others to me, of which I’ve already said is not for me to put forward, however I had already asked for a group discussion so others were able to speak their minds.
Their response to that was “we don’t discuss things as a group, or the weaker of the group will just go with whatever the loudest person is saying”
I want to quit. I can’t stand the attitude I get every time I mention the tiniest thing here.
The issue is I’m tied into this contract unless I pay a fee to get out, and I can’t afford it.
I don’t know what to do and suicidal thoughts are on a daily basis now. I used to be such a positive person but this job has broken down every fiver of that and who I am. Every night I come home upset and broken down because something else has happened, or I’ve been told off for no reason.
I literally see no hope at the end of this misery tunnel. I keep thinking I should always have choices to prevent living so horribly but I can’t think of a way out