With only mild curiosity from those on the ground really. A few patients mentioned it in passing, but this was nothing compared to the soapbox tirades I heard in the pubs during my recent UK holiday. Interestingly I found the result out before you lot in the UK did, because it was in the middle of my working day. I had the BBC website open on the live results page and kept peeking in between patients, all whilst everyone in Britain slept peacefully. Then when everyone woke up I read the shock attacks on facebook and twitter. But has it really affected us here? Day to day, no. There’s a few murmurings about the UK and Australia forging new trade deals, but nothing to rock the Richter scale. Life has gone on.
What has changed though is my salary. A drop in the UK pound and a stronger Aussie dollar has meant a pay rise for me (metaphorically speaking of course). Fluctuations in the pound and dollar have made huge differences to my overall pay, resulting in differences of a few £10,000s! Although it’s all rather arbitrary as I spend my money in dollars, but if I’m wanting to come back in a few years, then a strong dollar works in my favour. Brexit also resulted in a sharp rise in the number of people searching online about emigrating to Australia. This certainly seemed to echo the mood on the usual facebook GP groups about doctors wanting to jump ship. Well, if that’s you, do so quickly because RACGP has announced that they no longer have a need for new foreign GPs and they are hoping to get GP taken off the international skills list.