I was a Year 11 student hoping to study medicine two decades ago, when doctors in Victoria last went on strike. Now I am a consultant paediatrician with a young family and I joined colleagues from major public hospitals in protected industrial action on Thursday.
This included a stop-work action, supported by AMA Victoria and ASMOF (Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation), as doctors joined to negotiate with the Victorian Government for fairer pay, better working conditions, and safer workplaces.
A lot has changed in those last two decades. I still hear the stories from my junior colleagues of what the hospital system is like. I love my job as a doctor, and I deeply care about by patients. Don’t get me wrong. I love the career that I chose.
But I have also heard the whispers in the corridors, comforted burnt-out colleagues, shed tears myself during my training years, had ice poles to keep myself awake after night shifts on my way home from work and carried secrets home, as there is solidarity if we stick together, keep quiet and keep going.
Keeping quiet comes at a cost. Doctors experience high rates of psychological distress, burnout and suicide. While suicide is complex and there is never a single cause, we cannot ignore the role that chronic fatigue, relentless workloads and a culture that too often discourages vulnerability can play.
Looking after doctors is essential for the wellbeing of both our workforce and our patients.
There is a particular mythology in medicine that you will do whatever it takes: the long shifts, the night shifts, staying back late, turning up early, answering calls on your way to work, even before your roster begins. We often miss meals, do not drink enough water in between seeing patients to avoid needing to leave to go to the bathroom, as well as staying back late because there is an emergency or there is simply too much work to hand over to the next set of doctors coming on board. Because we care too much.
I have learnt to push through the fatigue, to not admit the struggle because it may be interpreted as weakness, because doctors cannot be seen as weak. But who determines this idea or this concept?
This is not just about pay. We need to retain a modern medical workforce. Women now make up most new doctors entering medicine, yet too many are leaving public hospitals because of unsustainable hours, burnout and inflexible working conditions – I am one of those women who substantially cut down my public service hours because of the challenges I faced juggling both. Many women have young families, like me, with dependents that are waiting for us to come home.
I wish things were different, as I enjoy working within the hospital, but I felt the need to choose between the hospital and my family.
If we want a strong public health system in the future, we need conditions that allow doctors to train, raise families if they choose, and stay.
Working as a doctor requires years of sacrifice and brings many rewards. I graduated from medical school at 22, completed a year of internship, and then spent 7 years of paediatric training in between, during which I studied and passed my fellowship exams. I had my first child at the age of 29 years and still had another 2 years of training to complete – my pregnancy was fraught with the challenges of high blood pressure due to the long working hours and my year in the hospital finished up with pushing an IV trolley at 30 weeks towards a patient’s bedside, which may have pre-empted the pelvic pain that followed and resulted in a hospital admission where thankfully my pregnancy was not affected.
Like so many women in medicine, I also experienced the challenges of returning to work while breastfeeding. After working seven consecutive days, I developed mastitis.
My story is not unique.
Many of my colleagues will tell you about struggling to find part-time training positions, trying to balance specialist training with pregnancy and motherhood, expressing breast milk between patients or returning to work before they were physically ready.
The reality is that our hospital system was not designed around the workforce it now has. It needs to change.
We also need a safer healthcare system where doctors advocating for their colleagues is seen as a strength. We need experienced specialists to continue to work in the public system and junior doctors that are not afraid to claim their overtime. This is why many doctors like me are currently in support of the negotiations for better pay and better working conditions and why we are taking protected industrial action.
I am fighting for my brothers and sisters in Medicine – to have a safer journey, one with less obstacles, a path where caring for doctors is recognised as an essential part of caring for patients.
Because one cannot exist without the other. They exist in a symbiosis, and we need to change the culture of medicine.
So, when you see doctors taking industrial action, support them. Support them and their families. Support the future of our public hospitals. Ask our government to listen to doctors’ voices. Because our health system is exhausted and burnt out, and the people who keep it running are fighting for their voices to be heard.