Know any working class doctors?

[gassor]

The Labour leader in Scotland has said that many CEOs and doctors earning over £100,000 are working class, whereas someone with their own (eg plumbing) business earning a quarter of that is middle class. I've never met a doctor who in their manner and behaviour didn't epitomise the essence of being middle class.

 

[blossomchris]

My mucker was a bricklayer and his wife a classroom assistant, two daughters one is a GP.
My BIL also has a GP daughter, he was an electrical engineer so not sure what class he may be.

Bloss

 

[Still]

My GP in London (95 - 02) certainly appeared to be from a working class background.
tbh I'm not sure what constitutes WC.

 

[Seeker_UK]

Can one be professional and working class?

 

[crimsondonkey]

I know plenty of doctors from working class backgrounds.

 

[gintonic]

I know plenty of doctors from working class backgrounds.

me too

 

[hifinutt]

yes, 2 friends are tradesmen and both had daughters who became Dr`s

 

[crimsondonkey]

Can one be professional and working class?

Depends how you define working class doesn’t it?

If you assess this on a narrow earnings/ assets criteria then it gets more difficult as the remuneration increases with more lucrative professions.

I tend to prefer to use things like values as better indicators.

 

[Simon Vess]

The Labour leader in Scotland has said that many CEOs and doctors earning over £100,000 are working class, whereas someone with their own (eg plumbing) business earning a quarter of that is middle class. I've never met a doctor who in their manner and behaviour didn't epitomise the essence of being middle class.

Please can you define the terms “ working class” and “ middle class “

If by “ middle class” you mean highly educated, on a good salary, then it is almost axiomatic that doctors will fall into this category

Simon

 

[Seeker_UK]

Depends how you define working class doesn’t it?

Which is itself a troublesome thing.

I think that you may be born working class but as soon as you take on a profession, it lifts you into middle class.

 

[crimsondonkey]

Which is itself a troublesome thing.

I think that you may be born working class but as soon as you take on a profession, it lifts you into middle class.

I don’t agree with that.

A lot of people who come from a particular background and upbringing don’t change fundemetally in themselves just because they enter a profession, which may or may not be well paid and conform to a preconceived notion that they are all the same because of it.

So, lots of through and through middle class people who don’t enter professions as such still fundamentally remain middle class, as much as a working class kid who studies and becomes a junior accountant but still lives and socialises with the people he was brought up with doesn’t take on a whole new persona or set of values and behaviours once he passes his accountancy exams.

 

[Mike Reed]

Think it's irrelevant and misleading nowadays to define status by class, partly because of social changes and partly immigration. Education is about the only determinate, I feel, as wealth certainly isn't. A friend once said ' there are toffs, educated professionals and the great unwashed'. I see myself as an amalgam of the last two minus the 'great'.

 

[Joe Hutch]

As Wordsworth wrote: 'I cannot see how Society will be benefited by swarms of medical Practitioners starting up from the lower classes in the community.’

 

[crimsondonkey]

As Wordsworth wrote: 'I cannot see how Society will be benefited by swarms of medical Practitioners starting up from the lower classes in the community.’

Sounds to me like a man who knows a great deal about nothing, and nothing about a great deal.

 

[Still]

Social mobility appears excellent although currently very much lacking imo.

 

[doctorf]

I was born into a working class family.
My brother and I were educated wholly in the state system.
I was a GP for 30+ years.
He is still a practicing dentist.
We both educated all our children privately.
The start I got in life taught me how to talk the language of the street and this always stood me in good stead as a GP.
If you asked someone what class my brother and I are now, they would probably say middle class.
Do I give a shit? No.
The left are obsessed with class.

 

[Bob McC]

Says the man who has privately educated his children...

 

[Joe Hutch]

tbh I'm not sure what constitutes WC.

Top of the stairs, turn right, you can't miss it.

 

[Still]

The left are obsessed with class.

Possibly because of how it, and the lack of social mobility in the UK, fundamentally works against those at the bottom of the pile.

 

[blossomchris]

Top of the stairs, turn right, you can't miss it.

Thought yours was in the backyard

Bloss