Former doctors complaining about the junior doctors' strike on TV: shame on you. You had it so much better than us

In case you need it, here's proof that everything was easier, better paid and less bureaucratic

Juniors doctors at a picket line outside St Thomas Hospital in London (Rex)

This week, as the country is faced with another 48-hour strike by junior doctors like myself, some former doctors have come out of the woodwork to comment on the industrial action. On TV and radio shows, these former doctors are saturating the realms of politics and media with their toxic views about how junior doctors have supposedly taken it all too far.

Thankfully, their views are not in the majority. Many more senior doctors have the opposite attitude, and are incredibly supportive of their junior colleagues. But just to set the record straight, I’d like to address those former doctors who have been badmouthing us in the press directly.

Former doctor, thankyou for all you have done in service of our nation’s health. But I have a few home truths to tell you about what it was really like “in your day”.

• In your day, interns had free hospital accommodation

• In your day, your salary went a whole lot further, and many of you were able to pay off your mortgages.

• In your day, junior doctors lived and worked together and provided a network and coping mechanism in times of difficulty. There was a “firm” culture where health staff were a team.

• In your day, nurses had the time and authority to deal with many issues themselves instead of having to spend almost their entire shift completing paperwork.

• In your day, junior doctors did not graduate with close to £100,000 of student loans to pay.

• In your day, doctors had a ridiculous final salary pension to look forward to.

• In your day, your working life was often not left to be dictated on the whim of management or human resources. In fact, there was no management or human resources.

• In your day, junior doctors from Australia, New Zealand and North America used to flock en masse to the United Kingdom, not just for Fellowship posts for Specialist Training. Why doesn’t this happen any more? Why is there such disparity between ourselves and our peer countries that so many junior doctors have applied to go overseas, when it was once the other way round? Does that not tell you something about how things are comparatively?

Even if junior doctors were working their feet skinless in the pits of hell in your day, why does that matter? You are justifying the unjust by falsely stating the past was worse, and telling junior doctors to pull their socks up.

Shame on you.