That doesn't sound believable to me. Can you elaborate/ explain ?
Because in the public system, junior consultants (specialist surgeons who have completed medical school, internship, residency, registrar training, and fellowship, and then often more years) are frequently paid a small percentage of a full time equivalent.
For example, you might be expected to do two days 'on call' a week. So they pay you for the two days (9-5) + $12 for being on call overnight (seriously it's $12).
However, every other day you're also the first point of contact for the trainees on your team, who can't operate independently on major cases - so you are always on call for that.
And you need to help with ward rounds for your inpatients, some of whom will be long stay patients who need lots of input, and obviously the people you admit often stay in a few days, have issues, get sick, get better etc and people call you about them as well. People often wait days for an operation on the emergency list (with no scheduled time), and suddenly you'll get a slot and need to be available for it. And you can't just not come in, because people are people, and they are dynamic, changing, improving and declining all the time. So the admin staff don't care, because they know if you've got patients you'll be there, whether they pay you or not, because duty ties you (it's the same as if you stop paying pilots halfway through the flight - they'll still finish it!).
The result? You work full time and then some - but for peanuts when you're on such an arrangement. Often in the hope of scoring the elusive full time job, or even better, visiting medical officer (fee for service) appointment.
Myself and the surgeon in question I mentioned performed an 8 hour emergency operation just last Wednesday that finished at 3am. Fortunately for me, my contract does pay for overtime - but hers is a fixed 'full time equivalent' boss job - so she did that operation for free. Things like that happen all the time.
So that's why
