(The following is a general handover covering both medicine and surgery, not a specific speciality)
A normal day is different depending on speciality, but generic daily routine for both surgery and medicine involves arriving on the ward and starting to ‘prep notes’ for patients with all the other juniors/residents on the ward.
These include anyone from F1 to CT2/IMT2 etc. How many on a ward can differ but typically you’ll split the patients between yourselves. ‘Prepping’ notes includes writing the template for the ward round note, include what their current diagnosis is, brief information of presentation, pertinent imaging findings, recent bloods, NEWS scores and importantly any recent updates (e.g new scan results/culture results/any events overnight etc).
Then ward round begins. You’ll either be with a registrar or consultant. If you’re lucky there’ll be another junior too. You’ll see all those patients together, formulate any changes/modifications to ongoing plans and create plans.
The rest of the day consists mainly of actioning those jobs. Which is tricky for me to compile a list for here, but can range from blood tests, requesting/vetting imaging, discussions/referrals to other specialities etc.
Then of course if anyone becomes acutely unwell/deteriorates you may have to go see them. This mainly consists of an A to E, formulating a plan, and running it by a senior (SHO or Reg.) During work hours it’s great, you’ll have senior support so don’t worry too much.
Evenings/on calls/nights. These are different. You have a bleep, you’ll take handover from the day F1 who’s been covering the designated wards. So you’ll already have some jobs to do as well as any new ones that arise. Here jobs typically comprise of chasing bloods/imaging results. Checking up on patients who were unwell earlier etc. In addition there may new patients who arrive. These patients will need initial clerking, consisting of a thorough history and examinations. Typically most will need bloods and may need further investigation as appropriate (cultures, urine tests, imaging etc). Especially earlier on it’s completely fine to run each clerking by a senior. During on calls there’ll be SHOs and Regs in the hospital with their bleeps. Familiarise yourself with their bleep numbers so you know who to contact if need be. End of shift you’ll hand over any outstanding jobs to the day team and the cycle continues.
Final point is, don’t worry! In the first couple weeks the learning curve is really steep, baptism by fire! But you’ll pick it up very quickly, be open to learning, be comfortable with making mistakes early on and if in any doubt, ask questions!
— Saad Dosani FY1
2024/2025