A Day in life of a General Surgery Junior Doctor in the U.K.
The following is my experience about a normal working day in my life from my General Surgery rotations in a district general hospital in the U.K..
7:30 am : Wake up . Get ready for work. Cook breakfast (usually Oats and Milk or Egg Omelette).
8:30 am : The day is started with a morning hand-over meeting in the surgery lecture theatre . All the admitted cases through GP referrals and A&E department are discussed here by the previous day’s on-call doctor and the night on- call doctor.
9 am : Prepare your list for the admitted ward patients and print them off for your team ( consisting of a FY1 doctor, FY2 doctor, Surgical registrar and the consultant)
10:30 am : Finish your ward round. You have accumulated all the jobs which are meant to be done for patient care. Update your patient list with jobs to be done. Ward jobs are distributed between you and the FY1 doctor. Your registrar is usually busy in the clinics or theatre. If you need any help, you can call him/her.
I usually grab a cup of coffee at this time .
12:30 pm : Finish about half of your day’s jobs .The jobs can include :
-Taking bloods if the phlebotomists couldn’t take them during their rounds
-Chasing blood results and acting on them
-Contacting other departments for referrals if needed
-Speaking to the relatives of patients
-Speaking with Microbiology consultant on call if there are antibiotic changes needed
-Speaking with Hematology consultant on call for optimizing patient’s anticoagulant status
-Assisting in the theatre with your registrar or consultant if there is an operating list
-Managing acute patients if any problems arises in the ward (alarming changes in patient’s vitals , temperature spikes etc.)
General Surgery patients are prone to developing post operative bleed, DVT, PE and infections. One needs to be very careful about these and any concerning changes need to be reported to your registrar.
1 pm : Finish having your lunch. I either cook my lunch and bring it to work or eat from the hospital’s Costa Coffee cafeteria.
4:15 pm : Try to finish all your day jobs and hand over any left over jobs to the on-call doctor. Notify the on call doctor about any jobs that need to be done at particular timings after you finish your shift ( taking pre-dose gentamicin levels for patients before giving them their daily dosing of gentamicin). Also notify the on call doctor about any acutely unwell patients in the ward.
4:30 pm : Update your patient list . Finish your shift and head home.
On one of the weekdays , there is a surgical teaching session conducted by one of the doctors.
Similarly there are teaching sessions from 12–1 pm , 2–3 days a week for junior doctors ( which cover a wide range of topics ranging from clinical medicine to communication skills and practical skills ).
Also, if you find time between your ward work, you tend to complete the ongoing work for an audit / research project, you’re participating in .
If you remain curious, there is scope for a lot of learning for a junior doctor on a normal day at work !
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