The British Medical Association will stop using the term ‘junior doctor’ after members ruled it is ‘demeaning’ to trainee medics.
The union said the infantilising phrase has been used to ‘devalue’ and ‘diminish’ their members’ contribution to the NHS and suppress their wages.
It is formally used to refer to any doctor below the rank of consultant – ranging from those who are fresh out of medical school to those with a decade of experience.
Representatives passed a motion backing the abolition of the word ‘junior’ at the BMA’s annual conference in Liverpool this week.
But critics said the doctors were being ‘overly-sensitive’ and should instead channel their energy in to improving their skills and earning a more senior title.
The union said the infantilising phrase has been used to ‘devalue’ and ‘diminish’ their members’ contribution to the NHS and suppress their wages. Pictured, junior doctors on the picket line outside the Leicester Royal Infirmary
It comes as many of England’s 75,000 junior doctors prepare to strike for five days later this month in pursuit of an inflation-busting 35 per cent pay rise.
The vote committed the union to discontinuing the use of the term ‘in all forms of communication’ and replacing it with just ‘doctor’.
The motion said: ‘This meeting firmly believes that the term ‘junior doctor’ is both demeaning and misleading for general public, who may not fully comprehend that these labels pertain to qualified professionals.’
It is likely to result in the BMA’s militant ‘junior doctors committee’, which has coordinated a series of devastating strikes, being rebranded.
Dr Emma Runswick, BMA’s deputy chair of council said: ‘There is nothing ‘junior’ about a junior doctor and never has been.
Health bosses were forced to cancel 108,602 appointments and operations when junior doctors withdrew care for three days in June, including from cancer wards and A&E. It took the total number of postponements as a result of strike action by the likes of junior doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists to 651,232 since December
‘Junior’ doctors have years of intense training and sometimes over a decade of experience on the wards behind us.
‘We are performing operations, running medical teams, saving lives.
‘Again and again the public has been misled by this demeaning term, a prime example of the way our work is devalued and diminished.
‘Today conference made clear the profession as a whole was not going to put up with this any longer.
‘This represents a big change not just for how we are viewed externally but also to many structures of the BMA and beyond.
‘We will need to take time to work out how we implement it.
‘But it is clear doctors will no longer tolerate titles that do not reflect our expertise.’
Members speaking in opposition of the motion said it remains important to distinguish trainees from their more senior colleagues and said the BMA has more important things to spend its money on than rebranding medics.
Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, said the doctors’ sensitivities with regard to their title are ‘over-inflated’.
He said: ‘There is a constant attempt to rewrite language on the basis of sensitivities. Anything normal is being recast as offensive these day.
‘The doctors should use their mental energies on improving their medical skills and progressing to the more senior role, rather than worrying about what they are called.
‘It is useful for patients to be able identify a doctor in training from their more experienced colleagues, in the same way they should be able to tell a doctor from a nurse.’
Junior doctors will strike for five days from 13 July, in the longest walkout in the history of the NHS. They will refuse to deliver any care, including in A&E and cancer wards.
Consultants will then strike on July 20 and 21, although they will provide ‘Christmas Day cover’, meaning they will deliver urgent and emergency care only.
Waiting lists in England stand at a record 7.4million, with over 650,000 appointments and operations cancelled due to industrial action since December
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