While I enjoy the occasional spy movie, I always find myself irritated at the protagonist, who very often spends the film focused on a mission with little or no knowledge of the “bigger picture.” Quite often he or she knows little about the organisation they work for, and, at times, they even accidentally end up in a […]
Category: Junior doctors
Will Stevens: Parachuting doctor—life as a UK Army Reserve
In my day job I work as a foundation year 2 junior doctor in Oxfordshire, but for the past seven years, I have also been a serving Army Reservist. Last weekend saw my unit, 144 Parachute Medical Squadron, deploy to Longmoor Training Area in Hampshire on a training exercise called Ex Green Serpent. The weekend was […]
Sanna W Khawaja: What can we learn from the locum?
When recounting the tale of my first ever shift as a bona fide doctor, the line “I was on call with a locum SHO and a locum Reg” tends to get the perfect reaction: sympathy and kudos. I follow “The Locum Doctor” on Facebook and have made many a witty (some would disagree) joke with […]
Martin Kaminski: How not to be a junior doctor
To all the newly qualified doctors about to inaugurate their careers in junior house officer posts across the UK next week, I bestow upon you the secrets to a happy and fulfilling start as a junior doctor. Namely, do not do some of the things that my colleagues and I did (which is a way of […]
Kiran Varadharajan: A junior surgical trainee’s perspective on surgical simulation
The European Working Time Directive (EWTD) has reduced the number of hours that trainee doctors have to hone their skills. As a junior surgical trainee, I find that time in theatre is of the essence when it comes to improving my operative skills. “The Time for Training Report” highlighted these challenges with suggestions on how […]
Anna Allan on applying to core training
Alongside thousands of other trainees, over the past months I have been partaking in the core training application rigmarole. And it is exhausting. For example the process of compiling a portfolio of academic self worth for a 10 minute flick through, is simultaneously self assuring and depressing. The need for a quick and effective selection […]
Keir Arran: A remote and rural foundation programme—a unique experience
Several recent publications, including the BMA’s Healthcare in a rural setting suggest that there is a shortage of doctors working in rural areas. I first heard about the N10 rural track foundation programme from a registrar working in A&E when I was a student. He talked about the programme with such enthusiasm that I looked […]
Jonny Martell: Surviving burnout
Nothing much sprung to mind. A friend had just asked me an odd question, paraphrasing the mystical scholar Andrew Harvey, “what breaks your heart the most?” Was this an early showing of the carapace of cynicism to come? A day later it came back to me: the thought of my father’s final walk around the […]
Nassim Parvizi on being a junior doctor on the Keogh Review
As junior doctors, we all see and hear things that work well or that could work better as we rotate between different departments across a number of hospital trusts. So we are in a privileged position to contribute to the safety of the healthcare we deliver to our patients. I previously found raising concerns a […]
Sarah Welsh on health gadgets
Hardly a new breakthrough, but gadgets relating to health, fitness, and wellbeing are on the increase. Pedometers, sleep monitors, diet apps, and so on, all remain very much in vogue. But, are medical gadgets really the way forward in healthcare? Do we want to be strung up to some monitoring gadget whilst we get on […]