Decisions
Triage, uncertainty, deteriorating patients and the responsibility of acting quickly without allowing speed to replace careful thought.
The emergency medicine journal · 2023 - 2025
Tales of an Emergency Trainee
Into the controlled chaos
The department never waits for certainty.
This is not a manual for emergency medicine. It is the story of learning to make responsible decisions before every answer is available.
I entered specialist training after medical school, foundation years and a long detour across the world. The journal follows crowded waiting rooms, undifferentiated patients, relentless shifts, mistakes, mentors, difficult cases and strange humour - less about mastering chaos than learning to think clearly inside it while remaining human underneath the scrubs.
2023
The training journal begins
2
BST years documented
24/7
The department never closes
∞
Decisions made under pressure
Read chronologically
Two years inside emergency medicine.
Begin before the first specialist-training shift, continue through both BST years and finish with the final reflections in the afterword.
00
Before the first resus call
Foreword
Why emergency medicine, what came before it and the uncertainty of beginning another demanding chapter without knowing what kind of doctor would emerge.
Open the foreword I The first year of trainingBST Year I
The first year inside emergency medicine - new responsibility, relentless shifts, unfamiliar pressure and the gradual discovery that calm is a skill rather than a personality trait.
Enter BST Year One II The second year of trainingBST Year II
More independence, harder decisions and the next stage of learning how to lead, prioritise and keep moving when the department is under strain.
Enter BST Year Two ∞ The end of this chapterAfterword
A final reflection on two years of emergency training, what changed along the way and what remained after the noise of the department settled.
Read the afterword
Inside the journal
More than adrenaline.
Emergency medicine is built around urgency, but the stories that stay are about judgement, teamwork and the person learning to function inside the noise.
Night Shifts
Fatigue, camaraderie, strange presentations and the dark humour that emerges when the rest of the world is asleep and the department is not.
Becoming
Mentorship, mistakes, resilience and the slow development of a professional identity strong enough to remain steady without becoming detached.
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. - André Gide, The Counterfeiters
The complete journal
Take the journal with you.
Read the full story of two years of Basic Specialist Training in emergency medicine - from returning home after a year on the road to learning to find clarity inside the chaos of the emergency department.
Every purchase also helps support the continued maintenance of The Roving Doctor and the stories still waiting to be written.
$4.99
Digital journal
The training chapter ends. The emergency department does not.
The next journal continues beyond Basic Specialist Training, following the cases, shifts and everyday realities of life as an emergency doctor.
Next: Diary of an Emergency Doc.