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A thread (my first!) about @JujuliaGrace, @EveryDoctorUK and me.
In 2004 I started UCL medical school and ended up on a pub crawl team with Julia. While we ran from pub to pub someone told me that she ran 5 km every day and I thought that we were unlikely to be great friends.
In 2004 I started UCL medical school and ended up on a pub crawl team with Julia. While we ran from pub to pub someone told me that she ran 5 km every day and I thought that we were unlikely to be great friends.
I was right.
However throughout med school we were friendly acquaintances and friends of friends, facebook friends who didn’t stay in touch after graduation.
A few years later I started anaesthetic training and my CT1 year was the year of the junior doctor contract dispute.
However throughout med school we were friendly acquaintances and friends of friends, facebook friends who didn’t stay in touch after graduation.
A few years later I started anaesthetic training and my CT1 year was the year of the junior doctor contract dispute.
I joined the junior doctors contract facebook forum, and I noticed that Julia often had something interesting (and right) to say.I went out on strike in the freezing rain,
I sobbed when Jeremy announced he was imposing the contract. I couldn’t believe the BMA had fumbled it all
I sobbed when Jeremy announced he was imposing the contract. I couldn’t believe the BMA had fumbled it all
I thought about leaving (medicine and or the BMA) like many of my colleagues.
I got a pay cut just like Jeremy promised I wouldn’t. The BMA didn’t care. The press had completely lost interest.
I got a pay cut just like Jeremy promised I wouldn’t. The BMA didn’t care. The press had completely lost interest.
I noticed quite a lot of nastiness start to be directed towards Julia on different FB forums.Lots of people implied she wasn’t a doctor, lots of people said she was a narcissist (which was weird because I’ve met narcissists and she isn’t one) She always managed to rise above it.
Julia announced that she was founding an organisation called @EveryDoctorUK . She posted frequently and passionately for an organisation that wasn’t a union but that advocated for UK doctors in a way that wasn’t being done. She spoke out for people who didn’t have a voice.
She spoke out for doctors on visas paying sky high fees AND an NHS surcharge. She spoke out when there was not a single children’s ICU bed in the country long before the pandemic. She has spoken out and has been for years and if you didn’t hear you weren’t listening.
So I took a chance and joined this little tiny fledgling organisation with membership less than 100 because I knew the founder and she seemed to be good at what she was doing and if she believed in it enough to quit her job and take a gamble with her family’s future then maybe I
could chip in 20 quid a month for a bit and see what happened. And it’s grown. Exponentially. She’s taken on staff who are brilliantly diverse and skilled. She now pays herself a wage (shock horror). Growing means more advocacy and more representation for docs and our concerns
They have had some fantastic wins. Visa charges for overseas doctors were scrapped, they were amazing at highlighting PPE shortages at their worst. They launched incredibly quickly a text tool to keep tabs on PPE supplies throughout the UK for daily information.
the BMA sent me one email about PPE shortages (I am still a member of both). @EveryDoctorUK sent me daily texts for weeks. Everydoctor branded PPE campaign material was circulated by really big names and focused attention on the problem.
They’ve launched legal cases against the government in collaboration with the good law project challenging their PPE procurement policies. All of these things, the advocacy, the media, the branding, text tools, *work* and cost ££ My £20 a month went towards it (your welcome)
But if you’re angry that she forwarded an email ask how she should have responded to the whistleblower who leaked it “Soz not interested, twitter might be mean about it - send it to someone else” Someone trusted her enough to send it and desperately wanted to get it to the media.
Noone is asking why it took a whistleblower to highlight the pressures at the Royal London when we had weeks and weeks of camera crews filming inside Lombardy hospitals when they were overwhelmed.
A lot of people are essentially saying she’s too junior or not frontline enough to be allowed to talk but she runs an organisation that advocates for UK doctors so she has a duty to talk about our concerns. It’s her actual job.
As for the junior part, we were at med school together. I’m ST5 anaesthetics after some time out of training and 2 kids so how old does a woman have to be to be allowed a voice?
In summary people who hate @JujuliaGrace are generally either:
Balls deep in the BMA. The BMA have a deep, institutionalised hatred of disruptors. It’s why they consistently fuck over whistleblowers. It’s why they hate @EveryDoctorUK . It’s a problem that says more about the BMA than it does about Julia.
Members or supporters of a rival similar but less successful doctors group.
Massive epic terrifying misogynists. Nuff said
Are you one of the above? Or are you jumping on the ideological bandwagon of a pile on you don’t really understand the background to? And if you’re following that horrible parody account maybe ask yourself
Because it's bullying plain and simple and you've earned yourself an unfollow from me. I'm looking at you @Assoc_Anaes
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