FY2 doctor and application time!

After another long hiatus, I am back! This time as a worldly (joking) F2 doctor.

I was lucky and thoroughly enjoyed my F1 year - a fantastic and supportive DGH, where by the end we felt like a bunch of close knit friends. It was a steep learning curve, and at times could be tough, but overall I had a great time.

F2 has been a step up - I've moved to a a big central London teaching hospital, and went from being a relatively protected F1, to suddenly 'the SHO on call'; is there any worse role than being the medical ward cover SHO? Perhaps second only to the on call med reg.
I started off on surgery which I quite enjoyed, relaxed ward days, lots of theatre time, but the nights and on calls were tricky. As SHO you accept referrals and run the take (very different to medicine), which was pretty daunting! I went from being a bit clueless to seeing 15+ 'RIF pain ?appendicitis' in a day. During this job I was making decisions about whether or not to apply for core surgical training (CST), despite really enjoying surgery, I found the lifestyle tough. I looked into alternatives; interventional radiology? GP with a specialist interest in minor surgery? In the end I did a taster week in Ophthalmology and ended up loving it - a good mix of medicine and surgery, mainly outpatient and well patients, great lifestyle, lots of scope for academia, and also - never ever having to do ward cover. So I put a tentative application in!
Of course I had managed to pick one of the most competitive specialties going - it ended up being a lot of hard work; trying to maximise portfolio points, revising for the MSRA exam, and then the interview felt like an exam itself. I have to stay in London for reasons relating to my non-medical partner, so have fully accepted I might not get a job this round and may need to apply next year. But still, fingers crossed, aye. I did um and arr about taking an F3, but ultimately I am not keen on the locuming life, preferring to have stability, also I am not the best traveller! A month away is the maximum for me personally, so an exotic year in Auz/ NZ/ elsewhere wasn't really for me. I have applied for some research and teaching jobs as a back up.



I have GP next which I am nervous about, but hopefully can learn lots and enjoy all my free weekend and evenings in the summer sun!

Until next time