This can be a busy job as an FY1, however I believe it is a great experience and you will be a better doctor after it, and the nursing staff in general are excellent and very friendly. You do routine reviews of patients at day 1 and day 4 post-op (this may have changed), which prepared me very well for FY2, as well as a "medical" clerk-in (e.g stopping anti-coagulation, organising baseline echo, optimising bloods/electrolytes). The department is led by a consultant orthogeriatrician who is worth their weight in gold, and assisted by 2-3 experienced and helpful staff grades. There are also 3-4 FY2s where it is effectively a medical job, and get no theatre time (reserved for CSTs/SpRs), so they will help you out with sick patients and outliers, however their shifts end at 20:00 if I remember correctly. Out of hours shifts only last until 00:00/midnight when hospital at night cover it until 08:00. Support out of hours can be limited past 20:0, as the SHO (CT1-2) job is extremely busy and they will often be in ED/resus, theatres or fracture clinic. Usually if it is difficult to get them to help you out, the medical reg will help you with very unwell patients.

Busiest job in the whole nhs. Bleep goes off constantly as you take spine referrals from whole of northern ireland, which is inappropriate for sho levels and have to constantly discuss it with registrars who are busy, overworked and fatigued out themselves. No one cares about your training, education and well being at the department. No time at all to develop portfolio. You will be coming in early daily and staying late always by few hours. This job is only good for portfolio hungry trainees who don’t have a life and willing to put in loads of unpaid hours and come in on off days to work. Poor and difficult relationship with a&e and of consultants to each other in the department, juniors bear the burden of ego fights between consultants. You rarely get any breaks. Nursing staff is horrible and rude, with no awareness of your massive workload. No FY1 on night shifts. It is responsibility of night sho to present all trauma lists and admissions in trauma meeting, most patients you have never seen and don’t know anything about, so you will spend time preparing for those to present 30 odd patients in the morning. You have to check consent forms and site markings overnight for all patients for trauma lists too. Core surgical training is a scam in Northern Ireland.