Assistantship – Learning how to be a Foundation Doctor

The logical progression for medical students who graduate from the MB ChB programme at Warwick is to move into the foundation programme. This is a nationwide, structured programme that cycles all recent med-school grads through six four-month rotations over two years within a particular deanery (or region of the country, of which there are currently twenty). Every deanery is different: some will rotate you between hospitals or trusts depending on the job you do, and some will let you stay at the same hospital for the full two years. It all depends on the deanery you end up in and the jobs that are available. I have been allocated to one of my top choices: a large district general hospital in the southwest of England, where I plan to be for the full two years.

The Foundation Programme is relatively uniform across the country, in that F1s (those of us in our first year of the programme) and F2s (doctors in their second year) are expected to complete more or less the same things and cover the same ground over the course of their years. For instance, I believe that all F1s are required to have a surgical rotation, and all F2s are required to have either an A&E, GP or GUM rotation. And all foundation doctors round the country all rotate jobs on the same days throughout the year – it’s kind of scary yet oddly comforting that our careers are planned out for us until August 2020! That will be six years since the beginning of medical school, but at the same time as least there shouldn’t be too many unpleasant surprises in our broad timetable and we can plan accordingly.

By definition, when the current F2 doctors leave their posts, the current F1s become F2s and we medical students become F1s, the collective experience level across foundation doctors drops by a year overnight. I gather that this might have had serious impact in the past on learning curves, efficiency of work, etc. However, in order to minimise the impact of this effect, the GMC, and by extension the various trusts and medical schools, take great pains to ensure that incoming F1s are adequately equipped to step into their roles. Foundation Trusts do this through inductions and shadowing at the beginning of our F1 year, and medical schools do this through including an Assistantship phase after finals.

As we are done with finals and our electives, we are now in that Assistantship phase. This is where we really ensure that we have the skills needed to be competent and functional F1 doctors. Our Assistantship placements are carried out in local hospitals, an arrangement with its plusses and minuses. On the plus side, we are all very familiar with the hospitals, their layouts, their wards and many of the doctors. However, many of our cohort will not be working in this deanery in the autumn, and so we will have to adjust our working practices to those of our base hospitals when the time comes. This might seem a minor point, but so many of the little things that F1s need to know about (how the imaging/patient-data systems work, how the stores cupboards are stocked, how procedures are requested) are completely different. It will require some adjustment. But at the same time, it appears to be a very well-run and well-thought-out block. Most importantly, we can learn on the wards without the threat of exams hanging over our head – always a bonus!

John

Joshua Galvin : 14 May 2018 09:23 |  Tags: John Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem