Reduced GCS
As a doctor, you will frequently be called for a drowsy patient. They can vary from confused to completely unconscious.
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ePortfolio
Your eportfolio is a tool to store and record evidence that demonstrates your progress, clinical competencies and reflections. Try to
Ranking Foundation Jobs
If you’re worried about not getting your top choice, you shouldn’t worry. It doesn’t affect your future career and wherever
Junior Doctor Pay Calculator
We’ve created a junior doctor pay calculator to help you better understand your salary, tax, student loans and NHS pensions.
Leave
As an FY1 doctor, there are different types of leave you will come across during the year and the rest
Referral Cheat Sheet
Our referral cheat sheet is our most popular resource having been downloaded thousands of times! It has key information to
Audits & Quality Improvement Projects (QIPs)
Audits & QIPs are a way to identify issues, drive changes and assess the effects they have. It is your
Mental Capacity
Mental Capacity is the ability to make your own decisions at the time at which the decision needs to be
Dealing with a complaint
Everyone will receive a complaint – this is inevitable. Usually, these are informal, “I’m unhappy with the care delivered” from
Clinical recordings and the Correct Consent
In all specialities of medicine patient clinical recordings, whether this is photographs or visual investigations, are imperative1. Not only are
Microbiology Discussions
A lot of your time as an FY1 will be spent on the phone to various other specialities. You’ll come
Nausea & Vomiting
You will frequently get calls regarding nausea & vomiting: many patients present with it or develop it because of their
Sore Throat
One of the most common A&E presentations is a sore throat, and while sore throat seems like a pretty straightforward
PICC Lines and Midlines
You may well be asked to take blood from a PICC line or be called to see a patient because
Hypoglycaemia
In this article, we provide a quick overview of how to treat and investigate the cause of patients with hypoglycaemia.
Death Certification
After a patient has died you may be asked to complete the death certificate. It may be issued by a
Chest X-Rays
In this article, we focus on the interpretation of a CXR. Have a low threshold to request one as they
Hypokalaemia
As an FY1 you will frequently see hypokalaemia and most trusts have guidelines that should be used in the first
Breaking Bad News
As a junior doctor, you will have face situations where you have to convey potentially distressing information, whether it is
Sepsis
Sepsis is an infection with evidence of organ dysfunction. Septic shock is when a patient with sepsis is hypotensive despite
Hyperkalaemia
Hyperkalaemia can cause life-threatening emergencies particularly cardiac arrhythmias. A widely used definition is extracellular [K+] ion concentration ≥ 5.5 mmol/L.
Constipation
Constipation is one of the most common complaints in hospital, especially on the geriatric wards.Failure to treat constipation can lead
Preparing for FY1
It is common for FY1s to feel anxious & feel like they’re not ready to start. We expect you to
Death Verification
As a new F1 in August, it can feel like quite a daunting task to verify a death, particularly if
Prioritising Jobs
I’m going to try and be as generic as possible so that hopefully these tips work across different specialities and
Delirium
Acute confusion, otherwise known as delirium, is very common in hospitals: 20-30% on medical wards, and between 10-50% of those
Anticoagulation
For new doctors, prescribing anticoagulants can be daunting. A few simple rules can make this easier. Ensure you use your
Discharge letters: hints & tips
Writing a discharge summary is a task you are likely to carry out every day, and despite the sense of
Handover
Handover occurs between shifts to ensure everyone is up to speed with patients. The exact nature of how it occurs
Reviewing and Requesting Bloods
Here we focus on blood tests requests for a variety of common scenarios you might see in practice and also
Preparing for the Situational Judgement Test
Preparing for the Situational Judgement Test (SJT) exam can be quite daunting. It makes up 50% of your Foundation Programme
Acute Kidney Injury
AKI is very common affecting around 20% of inpatients & it is important to recognise promptly and correctly to avoid
Common Prescribing Errors
When I supervise and teach FY1s, prescribing is in the top three things they are most concerned about. Usually, they’re
Self-discharge
Frequently patients wish to self-discharge from hospitals. This article pertains to adult patients only (18y+) and these patients can be
Junior Doctor Contract explained
In the UK, there are different contracts for each of the different regions: Northern Ireland, Scotland, England & Wales. For
Hyperglycaemia
Hyperglycaemia is something you will encounter frequently. In this article, we focus on how to approach hyperglycaemia and identify diabetic
Hyponatraemia
Hyponatraemia (serum Sodium <135 mmol/L) is one of the most common electrolyte abnormalities you will see and so a systematic
Writing SLEs
SLEs are supervised learning events that include Mini-CEX (mini clinical evaluation exercise) CBD (case-based discussion) DOPS (direct observation of procedural
Requesting scans
Requesting scans can be a scary daily occurrence for new doctors. It is one of few times where you liaise
Documentation
Medical documentation should authentically represent every consultation and is primarily intended to support patient care. Good record-keeping means you or
Falls
As an F1, you will quite frequently get bleeped to review a patient who has had a fall on the
Hypoxia
As an FY1, you will be called to review hypoxic ward patients. Here we discuss common causes of generalised hypoxia
Clerking Patients: A few tips
Here we assume you know the basics, and instead we focus on the common pitfalls with tips on how to
Essential Apps
Here’s a list of apps that are in order of how essential we find them. There’s probably more out there
Prescribing analgesia
When assessing pain, ensure you begin by taking a history to characterise the pain as neuropathic pain, inflammatory pain and
Deteriorating Patient
The deteriorating patient is often the worst nightmare for new FY1s. I remember when I started FY1, I was terrified
Prescribing IV Fluids
There are certain situations where you need to prescribe IV fluids which vary from fluid resuscitation to maintenance fluids if
Payslips & Income Tax
Each month, your pay and any deductions will be summarised to you in the form of a payslip. You should
Breaks and Burnout
When I left medical school, I thought my only difficulty would be the actual medicine, which most junior doctors will
ABG Interpretation
In this article, we will look at more practical aspects of how to read an ABG and treatment following your
On Call Tips
FY1s are usually most apprehensive about being on call, but it is also the shift you will usually learn the
Passing the Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA)
The PSA is aimed at final year medical students and those graduating overseas to assess their competency at prescribing as
Fluid Balance
Almost every patient admitted to hospital receives IV fluids at some point in their journey. However, the body manages this,
Surviving Ward Rounds
It takes time to get used to the ward round. Particularly, when patients are being seen so fast it seems