Doctors Claim They Have ADHD to Avoid Night Shifts
Junior doctors are claiming to have ADHD and dyslexia to get out of night shifts and on-call work, NHS leaders have claimed, with one in eight doctors under 35 now classed as disabled, a majority of whom cite mental illness. The Telegraph has the story.
The number of doctors who say they are neurodivergent or have learning disabilities has almost doubled to more than 6,000 since the pandemic, with young British-born people most likely to claim they have a condition.
Executives are concerned by the sharp rise in medics citing mental health or neurodivergence to reduce their workload or explain poor exam results.
Senior doctors said that some “were determined to avoid night work permanently”, and used social media forums to share tips about getting advantageous working conditions. They claimed that doctors would “react badly” when their claims were challenged.
However, the British Medical Association (BMA) said disabled doctors were suffering from discrimination and must get any “reasonable adjustments” they needed.
The rise in doctors’ ADHD claims comes amid a surge in reports of the condition in wider society, which is contributing to Britain’s worklessness crisis.
Around 1.2 million people aged 16-34 are now classed as disabled because of mental health, according to government figures, a near threefold jump since 2013-2014.
More than four million people of all ages are on jobless benefits with no requirement to look for work, mostly because they are suffering from long-term illness.
More than half of the disabilities that doctors declare are mental or cognitive impairments rather than physical ones.
There is most commonly a “learning disability”, followed by a “mental illness”, analysis of General Medical Council (GMC) data show.
Some 13% – more than one in eight – British doctors under the age of 35 now claim to be disabled, which is more than double the 6% of doctors aged over 35.
Just 2% of foreign doctors claim to have a disability.
Concerns particularly centre on junior doctors, now known as resident doctors, a group that has also held repeated strikes to secure inflation-busting pay rises.
Worth reading in full.
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Three years ago, they would have said they have “Long COVID”.
Anything to avoid mentioning the jabs.
Modern epidemic of lazyitis.
The more you give and the more you pander, the less you get in return as people will exploit your softness.
There’s a massive increase in young women suddenly having ADHD or claiming to be “nEuRoSpIcY”. Their word.
I can’t speak for young men, but I suspect young women try to fit in with their leftie friends. Having ADHD or self-diagnosed autism is a badge of virtue to the left, you see…
Guess the political leanings of young doctors these days?…
Well, the NHS doctors are people working in a system which only spends other people’s money on what other people tell them are other people’s problems. So, yes, very much on the left of politics, no surprise.
Perhaps make the hospitals private again, but don’t start a massive war which makes them too big to fail.
They need to do these same checks on nurses, midwives, ambulance crew, police, as well as any other shift-workers where rotating onto nights is part and parcel of the job. It’d be very strange ( though interesting ) if this were only a thing unique to junior doctors post Scamdemic, but a comparison with other occupations would certainly be useful.
I second that Mogs 👍
How do you achieve straight A’s and pass stiff medical exams with a learning disability?
Being treated by someone with a mental incapacity would certainly explain my last few encounters with the NHS.
No mention of cognitive dissonance over vaccines?
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