Foundation Year 2
Greater independence, harder calls and the growing tension between the career I had planned and the doctor I was becoming.
Knowing more, doubting differently.
Foundation Year 2 began with the hospital no longer feeling entirely foreign. I could work more independently, make faster decisions and carry greater responsibility - but confidence did not make the choices any simpler.
Across general surgery, neurosurgery, geriatric medicine and the final rotation, these entries follow harder calls, shifting ambitions and the widening gap between the career I had imagined and the doctor I was actually becoming.
The responsibility becomes personal.
Browse chronologically, search for an entry or filter the journal by its four clinical rotations.
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Search the journal insteadYou treat a disease, you win, you lose.Dr Patch Adams Patch Adams
You treat a person, I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome...
Take the journal with you.
Journal of a Junior Doctor follows both foundation years - from the shock of first responsibility to greater independence, shifting ambitions and the final decision about what came next.
Foundation training ended with certainty giving way to possibility.
Look back at the first two years in medicine, the career plan that did not survive them and the next chapter waiting beyond the foundation programme.
Finish with the Afterword.These entries are personal reflections written at particular moments during foundation training. Medical information and professional perspectives may have changed since publication.