After an agreement with the Department of Health and Social Care, the British Medical Association’s ‘junior doctors’ will officially change their name to ‘resident doctors’ from today, in a move to better reflect the responsibility of the role.
Both the DHSC and BMA will make the transition immediately, with the NHS and other healthcare organisations encouraged to follow suit. The term brings the UK in line with other countries, such as:
- USA
- Canada
- Australia
- Spain
Misleading terminology
The BMA has described the old nomenclature as “misleading and demeaning”, especially in regard to the skills of resident doctors. The move to change the name was agreed upon at last year’s annual BMA representative meeting.
The vote to replace the old term with the new term took place at this year’s ARM in June, after a survey in February indicated that the vast majority (91%) of the workforce supported the resident doctor change.
The government also agreed the term was preferrable during the recent pay talks. This comes after the now-resident doctors committee accepted the DHSC’s pay offer earlier this week, putting an end to the most prolonged industrial action in health service history.
A new era
The RDC’s co-chairs, Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, said: “There was never anything ‘junior’ about the work we do. The title ‘junior doctor’ misled patients into thinking that they were being looked after by underqualified or apprentice doctors.
“In fact we are expert clinicians who are responsible for a huge bulk of the medical care given to patients across the NHS every day – performing operations, leading medical teams, saving lives.”
Residents doctors form the largest single group in the UK’s medical workforce.
“The title ‘resident doctor’ better reflects their expertise and how crucial they are to the functioning of the health service,” added the co-chairs.
They concluded: “Doctors in the NHS have spent decades feeling increasingly undervalued and taken for granted. Part of restoring that value will be through deals that restore our pay, and we saw the start of that journey on Monday.
“But the language we use matters as well as pay, and this name change is a simple and straightforward way of marking a new era where resident doctors no longer accept less than they are worth.”
Image credit: iStock
