Everything we learn at medical school hones our ability to effectively conduct a consultation within 10 minutes. We are taught first to examine the body’s systems fully and methodically, then we learn how to focus them in order to save time. We are instructed to ask open questions and invite the patient to speak, then […]
Category: Junior doctors
Shilpa Prabhakar: Should you choose mental health as your specialty?
I have always wanted to be a doctor. Perhaps, like many, I was attracted to medicine because I wanted to help people. After qualifying in 2004, I briefly did a general medical rotation before moving into paediatrics and then surgical specialties. That’s when I came across psychiatry. Mental health is the only specialty where you can […]
Richard Thorley: Exception reporting—let’s show Jeremy how hard we really work
The day we have all been dreading in obstetrics and gynaecology has arrived. Some trusts started to roll out the new contract for junior doctors last week. The cancellation of strike action recently left a select few determined strike activists fuming, but while it seems most of us welcomed the decision, it has left us bereft of any […]
Ahmed Rashid: The UK junior doctor contract dispute in 10 hashtags
Hashtag: #iminworkjeremy Description: When Jeremy Hunt (Secretary of State for health) accused the NHS of having a “Monday to Friday culture,” healthcare workers from across the country posted selfies of themselves busy at work on their weekend shifts. Example: @trentconsultant #ImInWorkJeremy been round with registrar. Every patient seen. All poorly ones or who need decision […]
Thomas Oliver: Rare sarcomas—improving awareness among junior doctors
The National Sarcoma Awareness Project was launched in 2013 by a team from the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust (funded by the Bone Cancer Research Trust) to raise sarcoma’s profile among medical students and junior doctors. Four years in, it has caught the imaginations of over a thousand participants—a new generation of potential […]
Michael Moran: How to define a junior doctor
It was a rude awakening for me when a new registrar colleague exclaimed with glee: “your GMC number begins with a 6!” I hadn’t the heart to tell her that it’s actually a “61…” GMC number, and so there must have been around 100,000 doctors who qualified between my graduation day and hers. And so, […]
Rosamund Snow: What to call junior doctors—a patient’s perspective
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh have recently called for a change in the way we refer to junior doctors–“junior” and “trainee” sounds too pejorative and affects the morale of these “highly skilled and dedicated professionals.” I’m not convinced that this kind of change would make a lot of difference to doctors’ morale or […]
Ahmed Rashid: Medical careers—it’s what you make of it
The first year of medical postgraduate training, known in the UK as foundation year one (or previously as the “pre-registration house officer” year), is a decisive time for junior doctors. Like most of my colleagues, I was inspired by lots of physicians and surgeons during this year and was regularly wowed by seemingly brilliant diagnoses […]
Martin Kaminski: What I’ll miss about the NHS
As another first Wednesday in August approaches, I feel pensive and wistful that this year I won’t be spending changeover day in the heart of the National Health Service. Although you probably don’t hear it, I’m writing this in an American accent and am setting off for a spell to Boston, Massachusetts, where I grew […]
Alice Gerth: What to do about junior doctor morale?
Negotiations, four emergency care only strikes, a threatened imposition, one full strike, a referendum rejecting the contract and an imposition. It’s been an interesting few months. Many junior doctors are jaded by the experience and struggling with the continuing uncertainty: will there be further strikes, what impact will “Brexit” have upon the NHS, what will […]