The unstoppable rise of the locum doctor

The career trajectory for doctors used to be relatively simple. After graduating, you would step on the conveyer belt of post-graduating training, keep your head down and sooner or later come out the other end either a fully-fledged GP or consultant.

Of course, there were always exceptions. Careers were interrupted by children, some pursued careers outside of medicine and some doctors chose to work as ‘career grade’ doctors – who chose not to continue training up to consultant level but instead worked as independent doctors under a named consultant. And there were of course locum doctors, but this tended to be a temporary measure; something you did while biding your time before a permanent job came along or when you were in-between contracts. By and large, long-term locuming, while it did undoubtedly happen, was not something encouraged or even talked about much and was certainly not considered a career aspiration.