Busy but well-supported and well-staffed. You stay in the same team (cons, reg, two juniors) for a week each time which is nice. Good handover arrangements, very rare to leave late. Senior support always available.

Some consultants are lovely, some are very stereotypical surgeons. You stay in the same team for a week, so you’re either lucky or not.

Very poor training experience. There is too much focus on training international fellows rather than local trainees. In certain specialties under general surgery, you only get a week of resectional lists once every 8 weeks. In other specialties you never even get to assist as 1st or 2nd assistant simply because the international fellow gets preference. The rota changes frequently and we are expected to cover at short notice. Theatre opportunities are missed because we sometimes get pulled to do service provision. There is an expectation that you wouldn't get much exposure to operating on these complex cases till st7. Not a good place to train in super specialized resectional operations particularly if there are a lot of international fellows around.