Juniors spend over £17K on postgrad training

28 October 2011

JUNIOR doctors are spending an average of £17,114, mostly of their own money, on royal college, exam and professional fees during postgraduate training, according to new figures from the BMA.

A report in BMJ Careers reveals anaesthetics is the most expensive specialty, costing trainees £24,912 to train to certificate of completion of training (CCT) level.  Postgraduate training in acute medicine and gastroenterology was also particularly expensive, both at more than £20,000 in total, while general practice was the cheapest at £6,825.

For each year of training, anaesthetics costs more than £3,500 followed closely by acute medicine and gastroenterology. GP trainees spend more than £2,000 a year.

The costs taken into account were professional, indemnity, and trade union fees; membership fees for royal college and specialist groups; fees for courses and meetings; and fees for essential exams and for revision courses.

Deputy chairman of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee Ben Molyneux said most junior doctors were unaware of these “invisible” costs during postgraduate training. He said he hoped the research would put pressure on royal colleges “to stop ratcheting up the costs to trainees”.