Part of the suicide statistic was due to easy access.. with the traditional method of drivng to a quiet location and swigging a mix if whiskey and euthatal - although anyone who's had and accidental backspray of the stuff (most of us) wonders how you could really enjot soemthign that bitter unless you add dry ginger ale to the mix.
I did a locum job for one failed suicide.. he'd gone the more cold-blooded route of hitcing himself to an iv line..but then set a slow drip rate so it was really a ;cry for help; than a determined intent and he was found before fatal levels. Hard-nosed chaps like me feel that's a tad pathetic - if you're goingto do the job then get it done!
As for new grad wages.. well it's obviously situation variable. Before I retired i was paying SA new grads around a £25 package (4yrs ago) and they were interviewing me for places witout night duty etc and resented the fact we shift-worked to cover the open hours albeit they averaged a 40 hr week.
When i first quaified it was normal enough to do 8am to whenever evening surgery finished (no appt system so often 10pm) plus a 1:3 night rota and at least one night a week at the greyhound track 'til gone 11pm - and we loved it.
The local rural practice here is open weekdays 8am to 6.30pm plus obviously doing their out of hours stuff. My place in south london (shift worked) was 9am (admissions from 8.30)to 7.30 most weekdays with one 8pm, saturdays was 9-7 and sundays 10-4. Of course when i first bought my own shop and worked it solo it was simply 8am to whenever I finished (8pm-10pm most nights) and saturday til mid afternoon and on-call all the time. I once went over 2 mths without leaving the building (lived above) with my nurses getting my shopping and laundry - except for house calls. But then you do that to start any business You also keep a tight rein on personal expenses and reinvest all the spare into more and more 'toys' rather than kids wanting to 'have it large'. Why we ended up almost the first to own ecg, then sophisticated labs, ultrasounds, dental gear, digital rads, endoscopy, extending the buldings etc etc. I was my wife that stopped my buying the MRI I wanted 'cos i was still pulling long hours even if the staff weren't. And age was creeping on.
You can make what you want out of any job by rolling up your sleeves, charging fair fees and being available and getting it done - and doing your best wth anything that comes through the door from a frog run over with a lawnmower to a stray wallaby or squirrel baby that fell down the chimney as well as the normal SA stuff.