Junior Doctor Review

MY placement was very enjoyable. I learnt a lot by observing and listening carefully to how healthcare professionals interact with each other. I was able to gauge an understanding of what the day to day life of a doctor is and some of the challenges which they face. I felt comfortable asking questions and felt safe in the hospital environment.

Unfortunately, this placement is based on observing as opposed to dealing with situations. As the field is dealing with the lives of patients, there is no room for error and patient safety will always come first. Therefore, I was unable to help out and feel part of the team. The staff did make me feel welcome and I was happy to be there but unfortunately not a valuable addition.

From the moment I arrived, staff were welcoming and introduced themselves. Safety briefings were given and I was allocated a supervisor who would be able to answer all my questions. I was given a timetable of what I would be doing daily and who to contact if I needed extra support. All the staff made me feel comfortable and highlighted the importance of raising concerns if worried about anything. Ultimately, patient care was a priority.

I learnt many things from this placement. Firstly, being a doctor is a tough career and can be very very stressful. Knowing personal limitations and how to cope with pressure is essential. Seeing the communication skills between members of the healthcare team was useful and will be beneficial in my future practice. Seeing the application of textbook knowledge in a practical sense is a key lesson that reality has it’s own challenges.

The insight was very well structured. A daily timetable was given with the exact location of where to be and when. Learning outcomes were given at the start and then cross referenced at the end to determine the usefulness of the placement. Feedback was enquiries about at all stages of the placement and a debrief session was carried out at the end. Different supervisors were all ready for our arrival and knew the right level of knowledge to teach us.

Everyone was kind and helpful. There was a sense of intersubjectivity which was felt when a senior member of the team would introduce you to everyone to ensure that’s you didn’t feel left out. Although you couldn’t contribute, you still felt welcome. It can be scary coming into a new environment but having the comfort of a named supervisor who you would see everyday made things easier. Having other students around made it feel less like a hierarchy but more of a team-like environment.

I guess you could argue that by proving a student with an experience of what it is like to work in a hospital, they are clued in before applying to medical school. This may act as a sift mechanism to separate those who really want to study medicine and reiterate the doubts for those who don’t want to. Medical school is always oversubscribed to and therefore you can also argue that these placements just encourage more students and hence don’t really help in the overall production of doctors.

Looking back, it is a good placement to have a rough idea but by no means is close to showing the reality of doctors. A few weeks is not enough time to really understands the difficulties. You may be able to tell that doctors are stressed but a much longer placement is needed to understand why they are stressed and how the situation of the NHS affects doctors. Only once you finish medical school and actually start practicing as a full time doctor will you know what it feels like. Not much can really prepare you.

Not very well. I would argue that even medical school is not really enough time to understand the culture of healthcare. Power and hierarchy rule all throughout hospitals settings and this is something which needs to be addressed. A simple placement is not enough to realise then intricacies and implications of this hierarchy. Again, until you actually start working, you will never know.

I have always known I wanted to be a doctor so this placement was just reassurance that this was the career for me. Gaining more experience would help me score more points in my application into medical school and even giving me a small sense of curiosity into what kind of doctor did I want to become. It helped me realise the uphill journey I would have with studying and memorising bookishness knowledge but also the challenges in applying it in the hospital. Overall, it was another boost in the direction of wanting to become a successful doctor.

Voluntary placement.

No.

N/A

I was able to ascertain some of the activities where which run in the hospital to help with the well being of doctors. This included yoga classes, marathon running training sessions and meditation. In addition, I wasn’t able to speak to consultants about private practice and how important it wasn’t to build a good portfolio. I learnt about how some doctors would volunteer in developing countries and travel far and wide to apply their skill set to those in need.

Being able to understand the career of a doctor beforehand applying to medical school is very important and necessary. It is not a career to simply make money or to help people. It is tiring, challenging and sometimes patients can get worse instead of better. It is vital to understand these things before starting this lifelong journey of learning.