Bookend
Open Start of BST 1
Start of BST 1
Foundation training is over and specialist training begins - with emergency medicine becoming the centre of the story.
BST Year 1 · 2023–2024
BST Year 1
Into the controlled chaos
Calm is a skill, not a personality trait.
BST Year 1 began after medical school, foundation training and a long detour across the world. Emergency medicine brought undifferentiated patients, constant interruption and decisions that could not wait for certainty.
Across four quarters, these entries follow relentless shifts, travel, relationships, early mistakes and the gradual construction of a professional identity inside emergency medicine.
I
First specialist-training year
2023
The first year inside emergency medicine
28
Journal entries
4
Quarters
Read BST Year 1
Four quarters. One first year in emergency medicine.
Begin at the start of BST 1, follow the year quarter by quarter and finish where the first specialist-training year closes.
Quarter 1
Q1
The first quarter is about returning, restarting and finding a new rhythm as emergency medicine becomes routine without ever becoming predictable.
Quarter 2
Q2
Travel, difficult cases and feedback interrupt the new routine while the first real check-in asks how BST 1 is actually going.
Quarter 3
Q3
Summer brings music, travel, almost-love and a period when life outside the emergency department feels unusually full.
Quarter 4
Q4
The year closes through travel, autumn dread and perspective, ending at T+365 with the first full year of specialist training behind me.
Bookend
Open End of BST 1
End of BST 1
The first specialist-training year closes with a full year of emergency medicine behind me and BST 2 waiting on the other side.
I am not what happened to me,Carl Jung
I am what I choose to become.
The complete journal
Take the journal with you.
Read the full story of two years of Basic Specialist Training in emergency medicine - from the uncertainty of BST Year I to the harder decisions, growing independence and lessons that followed in BST Year II.
Every purchase also helps support the continued maintenance of The Roving Doctor and the stories still waiting to be written.
The first training year ended, but the department never stopped moving.
Continue into BST Year II during 2024–2025, where independence grows, decisions become harder and learning to lead matters as much as learning what to do next.
Continue with BST Year II · 2024–2025.