Foundation Year 1
The first calls, first patients and first real responsibility - when five years of medical school gave way to the hospital ward.
The first year behind the name badge.
Foundation Year 1 began in July 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, with borrowed confidence, unfamiliar wards and a pager that suddenly made every problem feel like mine.
Across emergency surgery, neurology, general medicine and the rotations that followed, these entries trace the shock of first responsibility, the humour that kept us afloat and the gradual realisation that being a doctor was nothing like being taught by one.
The starting line becomes real.
Browse chronologically, search for an entry or filter the journal by its original clinical rotations.
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Search the journal insteadEach of you comes here today a hopeful. Wanting in on the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure and two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That's up to you..Dr Richard Webber Grey's Anatomy
Take the journal with you.
Journal of a Junior Doctor is a brutally honest account of what really happens after medical school ends - when confidence is borrowed, mistakes feel fatal and sleep becomes a distant memory.
The first year ended with the hospital finally feeling familiar.
Continue into Foundation Year 2, where responsibility grows, the rotations become more demanding and the question of what kind of doctor comes next becomes harder to ignore.
Continue with Foundation Year 2.These entries are personal reflections written at particular moments during foundation training. Medical information and professional perspectives may have changed since publication.