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Latest posts

Am I ready to become a doctor?

Posted on 5 June 2013 by Ruth Corrigan

I am a few weeks away from being a doctor and I have The Fear. It is causing me to reflect exactly what I’ve spent my time at med school doing.

Tags: medical students, junior doctors, foundation programme year 1
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Feelings do not mean failure

Posted on 10 May 2013 by Yasmin Kaur

During a busy Saturday morning on the medical assessment unit, a daughter came up to me and asked how her mum was doing.

Tags: junior doctors, secondary care, hospital practitioners, doctor-patient relationships
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Taking the stabilisers off

Posted on 8 May 2013 by Ben Rees

The punter (as the nurse called him) had had a few drinks and fallen down some stairs.

Tags: junior doctors, junior doctors committee, medical education and training
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Students should take every chance to learn

Posted on 18 April 2013 by A medical student

Regardless of how many or how few opportunities present to improve your clinical practice, medical school is what you make it.

Tags: medical students, medical education and training
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Lost in the supermarket

Posted on 7 March 2013 by Emma Casely

After a particularly unpleasant and gruelling day on call, I found myself traipsing up and down the aisles of my local supermarket, idly hoping for some inspiration to jump into my basket. Chicken? Chorizo? Eggs? Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man holding a trolley with very straight arms and an unusually wide stance.

Tags: junior doctors, diabetes, anaesthetics, accident and emergency
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Working on the wards was daunting but inspiring

Posted on 6 March 2013 by Sunil Farmah

Five years at dental school, one as a vocational dental trainee, and two as an associate in general dental practice. And still I was in no way prepared for the daunting challenge I was to face working as a maxfax SHO at Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Tags: medical education and training, junior doctors
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The cold hand of failure

Posted on 25 February 2013 by A junior doctor

I have failed an exam for the first time, and it feels like the end of the world.

Tags: medical education and training, junior doctors
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Mr Smith — in memoriam

Posted on 21 January 2013 by Zoe Greaves

I will never forget the moment I encountered my first dying patient. He was neither the first patient I had seen die, nor the first death I would certify. But he was the first patient in whom I had watched the process of dying.

Tags: end of life issues, medical education and training
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No perfect time for parenthood

Posted on 15 January 2013 by A core trainee

I am a core trainee and I am 28 weeks pregnant. I am aware most people’s reaction to this is one of surprise that I would have a baby this early in my career, and I am sure many of you reading this are assuming that it must have been an accident.

Tags: junior doctors, consultants, careers, maternity leave
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Lack of time muddies referral waters

Posted on 14 January 2013 by Miriam Namih

Working on-call as a medical foundation doctor 1, I clerked a woman in her late 60s who had been referred by her GP with ‘shortness of breath, query cause’. I began with the usual history taking: she had been walking in town the previous day when she became acutely short of breath. This was associated with a feeling of leg weakness but no other symptoms, and the incident had resolved itself spontaneously.

Tags: general practitioners, foundation programme year 1, secondary care
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