What do hospital consultants value about their jobs? A discrete choice experiment
BMJ 2003; 326 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7404.1432 (Published 26 June 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;326:1432
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Pricing one's worth and then succeeding in being paid accordingly are
important and fundamental issues for service workers in our economic
system. Employees must beware of giving recorded information from which
their employer can argue that they have given themselves a lower value
than they intended.
The 1793 Scottish hospital consultants who thought they were being
helpful to the National health Service (NHS) by participating in the
research of Ubach at al may find that they and their non-participating
colleagues have been seriously disadvantaged as a result.(1) The authors
state that these consultants value their overtime at £11.70 per hour,
approximating to many minimally skilled workers, on the basis of indirect
questioning,
How this can be appropriate research for a postgraduate medical
education council to fund defeats me. It is not always in one's best
interests, or even that of the NHS as a whole (considering the effect of
the currently inadequate remuneration of some consultant posts on
recruitment and retention), to reply to "research" questionnaires.
1 Ubach C, Scott A, French F, Awramenko M, Needham G. What do
hospital consultants value about their jobs? A discrete choice
experiment. BMJ 2003;326:1432-5. (28 June.)
Competing interests:
Member of Council of British Medical Association
Competing interests: No competing interests
Interesting study.
Great majority whole time.
Second strongest wish- ability to do non NHS work.(?)
Implication- as it is acknowledged that there is relatively little private
practice in Scotland- move south, change contract and employer.
Can this be true?
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
In a BMJ that highlights problems with racism in the
profession, I must question the use of a picture of
two men in tartan and tweeds enjoying a wee dram as a
suitable image for an article on Scottish hospital
consultants. I have never seen a colleague doing a
ward round, domiciliary visit or out patient clinic
in such "classic" Scottish clothes while having a dram. In addition the
image of downing a wee dram is not one I would have thought should be
associated with on-call workloads.
If the editor wishes more appropriate images these can
be supplied - plenty of hard working doctors or some
when there is af ree moment to do windsurfing off
Islay, sailing off the Black Isle, playing golf at St
Andrews or climbing in the Cairngorms. We do know how
to try to balance work and life even with the high
intensity on-call workload!
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Consultants naively undervaluing themselves
Dr. Goodman's response misinterprets the context of the survey. The £11.40 of net income consultants would need to be compensated to work and extra hour per week does seem low. However, that can be explained by the fact that consultants are used to working long hours, and so an extra hour per week doesn't make much difference to them. They have been captured by the culture of working long hours. It reflects that an extra hour at work is less important than other aspects of the job. This means that if we want to increase consultants' job satisfaction, then these other aspects of the job should be given priority.
The consequences for consultants of not filling out surveys by bona fide independent research groups is that even less will be known about what they really think. Wasn't this the original cause of why the contract negotiated by the BMA was rejected? Only by using rigorous survey methods and questions can we get at their 'true' underlying preferences. Consultants aren't naive.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests