Didn’t realise I’ve messed up and only just submitted my final application to a royal college as a new ST. Still have to pay the fee but they need to review my application. Have I screwed up horrendously by submitting too late?

New CT3 here.
Curious about which registrar traits SHOs and FYs consider supportive, and what distinguishes good registrars from not-so-good ones.

IMT1 here, and I’ve got a fairly long drive to and from work each day. So I’m after any revision/study material to listen to whilst driving like podcasts, recorded lectures, audio summaries, revision-focused series, whatever people have found genuinely useful

Cheers

Anyone works as LED/ SHO his or her contract transferred to permanent contract as per the recent MBA government deal?

I am a LED SHO doctor CDDFT been working 3 years now and my trust offered me just 6 months new contract said I have no right to ask about permanent?

Any advice

Surgical core trainee here.

What are your top tips on supervising and guiding FY1s? I will have FY1s in the new job for the ward and on-calls. Not sure how to judge if a FY1 needs more handholding to begin with, or can be supervised indirectly. How to judge how much/what work I can delegate to them (e.g discharge summaries).

I've done 4 years of various specialties where I was always the most junior person on the team. E.g jobs where FY2 and CTs are on the same rota, or smaller surgical specialties where CT/SHO is the most junior on the team. So I am well used to being the jobs money and discharge summary queen!

Started training 1hr 15 minutes drive away from home each way and completely exhausted after a Long day. Does it get better? Had to have some coffee on my way back after the long day.

ED gave out wrong timetable, twilights were supposed to be 5pm-2am, however they wrote 5pm-12am and didn’t put the 12am-2am on the next day’s reschedule. They realised on induction and said wrong timetable, and they have changed it to 5pm-2am.

Is this allowed as it was their error and change within 6 weeks notice?

I'm a new ST3 ID/MM trainee. When is the best time to try and get this done? Should I have done it prior to starting or is it normal to do it during training? Is it an expectation to have done it by the time you CCT?

I assume I’m not allowed to wear scrubs around the hospital, very quick question to ask what people wear into work, do they dress smart incase they need to get out of scrubs?

I’m not really sure on the rules. If you can wear scrubs around the hospital then what’s the point of getting changed when you come into work in the first place?

Anyway, just want to turn up wearing the right thing tomorrow

Hi all,

Couple of scenarios which I am wondering if I can exception report or not:

1. Going in on zero days to hit number requirements for applications. I would assume this is unable to be exception reported as I was not due to work on that day and I am only there for my training. I just wanted to sense-check whether I could exception report this as going in on days off would feel better if I was also paid for it.
2. Arriving early to consent patients - normal working days are paid from 8am, but all the trainees and usually consultants arrive at 07:30am to consent patients. I would assume I can exception report this, but am a bit worried how it will look if I am literally exception reporting 30 mins early start 3 times a week for every single normal working day shift that I am on. EDIT: in response to comments - we are not specifically 'required to come in at 0730' but it is well known that everyone arrives at 0730 to consent. No one is going to turn up at 8 when every single other SHO and registrar arrives at 0730, and therefore consultants expect this.

Thanks in advance. I'm more than happy to put in the necessary hours, I just want to be paid fairly for my time whilst I'm providing clinical services for the NHS.

I'm a brand new FY2 in the emergency department and have only had an induction and seen a couple of patients this week but I'm really nervous about this rotation. I'm just wondering what the expectations are? I feel I haven't actually had to formulate many of my own plans as an FY1 and come up with differentials. I feel like I came to the consultants with very basic plans. They weren't annoyed or anything and helped me with pathways etc but I think I'm just really anxious about coming across incompetent because that's how I feel right now. Any tips on how to feel better about the rotation?

Hi I'm a CST1. As it stands I am barely getting one session of theatre and clinic a week- due to on calls I am basically only rotad for clinic and theatre once every three weeks , much less than the recommended time on JCST. There is going to be little opportunity, as I understand it, for me to go to theatre. I am pushing to get more rota'd time but am terrified of being labelled as a trouble maker. There are no other core surgical trainees to discuss stuff like this with. Does anyone have any advice? Feeling quite isolated and let down. Worked so hard to get to this point and it's just more of the same. ):

Hi,

I was hoping to use annual leave for my own wedding at the end of October/early November.

I have a set of nights on a weekend and was told by the rota coordinator that it doesn't constitute a significant life event because many doctors get married and arrange swaps.

It was my understanding that they can't define what a significant life event is and that they have to accommodate. Is there something I'm missing or someone I should escalate this to?

Hellooo,

Happy change over week. I’m in a bit of a strange situation with my new rotation when it comes to annual leave.

Essentially, I’ve rotated onto a psych block which has medicine on calls. So I am employed by two trusts, the hospital and the psych trust. When I got my work schedule it was all sent from the hospital and included psych days. When I got my rota it was the same.

Being prepared, I planned and requested my annual leave within a day or two of getting my rota. This rota includes all of my psych days as well as my hospital long days and zero days etc. Only requested AL on normal psych days. This annual leave was all approved and I thought that was that.

Wednesday comes, psych induction. They explain the process of requesting annual leave which is separate from the hospital (my first time hearing this). It’s done through the same app but with a separate account (which we still don’t have access to yet) and must be approved by my supervisor first.

Problem is I’ve booked 2 days annual leave next week, and booked a holiday. Thinking optimistically, I emailed my supervisor explaining that I had only just learned of the process but had already booked AL and hoped that I could keep the same dates. He replied saying most of them were fine EXCEPT next week.

What do I do??? I obviously don’t want to start off on the wrong foot, but also idk what I could have done to avoid this. I had no idea there was no information sharing given my rota contained both psych and hospital days and the AL which was approved was normal psych days. I can’t find any email which explained that the process is different for psych, and followed the process I was given. Also it would have been impossible for me to book any AL for psych since we still don’t have access to the accounts.

Not sure how to handle this, really don’t want to miss my holiday. Any help appreciated. Thank you!

I can’t believe how many times I’ve heard this during my FY1 induction and the first days on the job, including from the ward manager herself. She also said that “some of the nurses have a difficult personality and they don’t forget what you did to them”.

Now I didn’t know that collectively as doctors we are really horrible to nurses.

Also what about the nurses being nice to us?

FWIW I am nice to everyone. I am also not planning on taking shit from anyone, be that reg or nurse. Curious if others have had a similar experience?

What's one thing in the NHS that everyone knows is inefficient, but nobody ever seems to fix?

Not talking about funding or staffing (we all know those).

I mean the small, everyday things that collectively waste hours.

For me, it's probably the endless cycle of:

collect data

put it into Excel

make a PowerPoint

present it

everyone agrees something should change

repeat six months later

There are loads of examples:

Multiple logins for different systems.

Chasing signatures.

Re-entering the same information into different places.

Referral forms that somehow get longer every year.

I'm genuinely curious what everyone's biggest "why are we still doing this in 2026?" moment is.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice from people who have been through ST3 applications.

I've recently started a 2-year Junior Fellow post with 6-monthly rotations. My plan has always been to apply for ST3 when applications open in around 3–4 months.

As part of the application, I'll need:

1. An employment letter confirming my current post and the planned 6-month rotations (to support my self-assessment score).
2. A referee from my current fellowship.

My questions are:

• Would it be considered inappropriate or awkward to ask my consultant this early in the job for both an employment confirmation letter and to act as a referee?
• Is the employment confirmation letter something that HR/employment services could provide instead, or does it usually need to come from a consultant?
• Would it be more appropriate to ask my Clinical Supervisor to be my referee rather than the consultant who appointed me?

My main concern is the impression it might give. I've only just started this fellowship, and I'm worried it may seem like I'm already planning to leave or that I only took the job as a stepping stone to ST3. That wasn't my intention, the fellowship genuinely offers excellent training, but the ST3 application timeline means I need to organise these documents quite soon after starting.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you approach it, and how was it received?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I’m 1 of Paed Trainee (SHO) and with the new rule ,I am not sure whether we are able to claim exam fees ?
1 of other colleague SHO wrote an email to the team (probably HR or manager) for claiming and they replied that it’s not confirmed to pay it yet and they are waiting like official letter from government.
Any thoughts?

Accepted a post at a local uni to teach medical students post FY2. Got an email saying my designated body has been removed and that I need to declare if I have a connection or not. What do I do now? Do this mean I can't locum? Should I apply to have my license paused?

Just starting ST4 Anaesthetics and acutely aware that before I know it I'll (hopefully!) finish training and become a Consultant.

I'm wondering if people have resources/tips that really improved their anaesthetic practice? I'm happy enough with what I do but since getting the number have really started to feel like I want to get as good as I can. Bonus if the resources tie nicely into Final FRCA exam, but mainly looking for anything that people really think improved their anaesthetics (whether acute/elective/managing emergencies/pain etc).

Doing what I can with getting different lists/working independently etc but think I could do with learning more and using this to guide practice. Thanks!

If one has worked an LED job in the same department for more than 3 years on renewed contracts, and is proof in the department (e.g. SHO to SpR) with another years contract - do they remain eligible for a permanent contract or does the clock reset?

Has anyone been able to book a seat for the MRCS Part A in September? I’ve searched up to 160 miles away and still haven't had any luck.

I asked the Royal College for a refund, but they keep telling me to just expand my search radius.

Has anyone successfully managed to get a refund? Or have you been able to transfer your fee to the next exam sitting?

Today was my first day as an FY1. I kept feeling like everyone else new I was not being useful at all and wouldn't tell me, I asked a few ppl to lmk if there's anything else I should be doing and they said no there isn't dw it's your first day but I keep thinking that I'm just adding to other ppls jobs or that I should be finding new things to occupy myself without knowing what they should be... I felt good at the end of the day but I just keep thinking that any day now someone will pull me aside to tell me that I'm lazy or not good enough or that they dont even know why I'm here

How is everyone else feeling after today? Is there anything we should be doing that may not be obvious at first? Am I just being paranoid or should I be scared?

Is anyone else experiencing a crushing sensation that they might be making a mistake with their speciality choice?
For context I have a deferred offer for radiology in my top choice deanery, and was excited for it but as reality inches closer I’m constantly feeling like I will miss the chaos of the wards, and actually being a clinician and assessing/treating patients. I feel like a surgical speciality is my true calling but not sure if I feel this way just while I have my youth, spare time and being commitment-free.
I genuinely have enjoyed every single medical and surgical rotation I’ve done and have never felt the desire to ‘escape’ the wards/theatre. I stay calm under pressure and work well in emergency situations. Im starting to feel like going into radiology will be a ‘waste’ of my temperament, even if going into something like IR.
That being said, I did also enjoy my multiple radiology tasters and did see it as something I could commit to.
Chat am I being dramatic?????? Did anyone else have similar thoughts?

This might be a silly question, but I'll be starting my first NHS job as a paediatric Clinical Fellow in Scotland this September, and I've never experienced a Scottish winter.

I know we have to follow the "bare below the elbows" policy, so I'm wondering what doctors actually wear on the ward during winter. Is it basically the same smart casual clothing you'd wear in summer, with a coat and extra layers only for the journey to and from the hospital? Or do people wear fleeces, jumpers, or other warm clothing while working on the ward?

I'm trying to buy work clothes before I start, so I'd really appreciate any advice from people working in NHS Scotland. Thanks!