Abbey Barraclough

F1 Bootcamp

We have had our first month on placement as fifth years. Hectic is an understatement! But I am so glad that our course is the way it is. With finals all done and finished last year, it feels like placement now is all about focusing on becoming junior doctors and the job that we will be expected to do fairly soon. I’m on a surgical ward placement at the moment, working the hours of the F1 through the week and trying my best to keep up with what’s happening. You get to do loads of clinical skills and it’s great because you are taking the bloods and doing the cannulas but not just as a routine exercise. You’re involved in all of the aspects of the care the patients get, so I feel like I’m getting a better understanding of why things are being done and learning to interpret the results we get from them because I know the clinical history. It’s hard, but when you have a good day it’s brilliant! Plus, what better way to be a good junior doctor than to have seen first-hand the good, the bad and the ugly of the job.

On that note FPAS opened yesterday, that’s the application form for our foundation years. The form itself is relatively straightforward. Ranking the deaneries (fancy word for an area you apply to) is not. You have to list, from your first preference to last, all of the deaneries in the UK and even though you hope you won’t end up with your last choices, you still find yourself umming and arring because ‘what if?!’ We have two weeks to make up our minds and get the forms in, then it’s a waiting game. It seems like a huge thing to be applying to be a doctor but it is so exciting to think that soon we will be graduating and stepping out into the real world. If the rest of this year is anything like the last month has been, Lancaster is prepping us for it very well!