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Like most of us, I have known failure. I tried to get into Cambridge to do preclinical medicine from sixth form\u2014twice: once in my fourth term and again in my seventh. Both attempts were unsuccessful. Instead I went to University College London and got to know London (my favourite city), and had the added benefit of studying history of medicine at the Wellcome Institute. But I did subsequently get to Cambridge for the fourth and fifth years of medical school and I live there now.<\/p>\n
I nearly didn\u2019t get my first job at The BMJ<\/em>. Having passed the membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, I was shortlisted for the journal\u2019s editorial registrar job in 1989 but asked to defer for a year so I could take up a general medical registrar rotation in London. When I reapplied the following year I wasn\u2019t shortlisted. I remember getting the letter and calling my mother in tears. She told me not to be so wet, it was obviously a mistake, and that I should phone them immediately and explain. I did, and they said it was a mistake. The moral of that story is that you should always listen to your mother and appeal a decision if you think it\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n In 1995, while in the US on a Harkness fellowship, I was shortlisted for the Lancet<\/em> editorship. The selection process took months and in the end it came down to two of us, me and Richard Horton who was then an assistant editor on the Lancet<\/em> as I was on The BMJ<\/em>. Richard was offered the job and I thought my life was over. But one kind mentor told me I would live to be grateful, and she was right. It\u2019s possible that had I got the Lancet<\/em> job at that early stage in my editing career, both I and the journal would have suffered from my inexperience. And I might have been too busy to go to the party in January 1996 where I met my husband.<\/p>\n Things tend to turn out alright in the end, and as my brother often reminds me, if it\u2019s not alright, it\u2019s not the end.<\/p>\n Fiona Godlee<\/strong>, Editor in chief, <\/em>The BMJ.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n A recent article in <\/em>Student BMJ<\/strong> asked six doctors to reflect\u00a0on their biggest career disappointments. This blog was originally published as part of the article<\/a>. Like most of us, I have known failure. I tried to get into Cambridge to do preclinical medicine from sixth form\u2014twice: once in my fourth term and again in my seventh. Both attempts were unsuccessful. Instead I went to University College London and got to know London (my favourite city), and had the added benefit […]<\/p>\n
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