Critical Care at UHL is amazing - strongly recommended by both myself and many doctors who have worked here previously. Very supportive team, with lots of teaching and educational opportunities. Friendly and approachable consultant body. Genuinely the best job I have had in FY. I miss it and wish to go back. Has enthused me in ICU/Anaesthesia. No oncalls as an F2. Very chill rota. Only downside is realtive paycut.

Horrible department with no support and no focus on teaching and training juniors. Rampant culture of bullying by consultant body. Lots of politics between consultants to take control of the department. Consultants found harming patients during surgery and their practices limited due to that, which made their attitudes towards juniors worse. I will stay far away from this department as it comes under one of the toxic rogue departments found in some corners of the NHS. Some of the registrars were supportive which made the placement tolerable but they themselves were fed up of the crap attitude of consultants.

Lewisham is a busy hospital with an interesting multimorbid population. As most specialist services are elsewhere at nearby tier three centres, so is the funding. Easily one of the least busy takes I've worked for in London, however the caveat is that the trust is also one of the worst paying for locums and does not recruit well so there are plenty of rota gaps.

Overstaffed department (juniors wise) however workload can still vary day to day Each F1 in charge of looking after patients that come in on their consultants’ take - some weeks much busier than others when your consultant is on call. Some weeks only have two inpatients - when the consultant hasn’t been on call for a while or there have been many discharges; therefore some opportunities for working on portfolio / audit / theatre / leaving early for self development (if someone able to hold your bleep). Other roles can include practical procedures - bloods etc for pts clerked from clinic, organising fracture clinic lists from trauma meeting, documenting trauma meeting dashboard discussions, referring to other major trauma centres etc. Opportunities for plastering teaching, theatre exposure if week is not busy. Rota fairly relaxed 8-5 days with zero days following on call scheduled such that it becomes a long weekend ie fri / sat / sun or sat / sun / mon. On call 1 in 4 weekends as F1 seeing all the orthopaedic inpatients either independently or with a registrar Close working with orthogeriatrics team, anaesthetics team when admitting NOFs. Fairly manageable job if you have medical rotation prior - as F1s are coordinating most of the medical issues that crop up with inpatients - frequent medical specialty / other specialty discussions optimising pre surgical pts or inpatients with complex issues / lots of EDNs & TTOs / liaising with the MDT ie OT & PT. Did not expect to do quite as much medicine in T&O but it was very good training in being more independent with decision making.

Understaffed department - sometimes just 1 F1 and 1 PA looking after all inpatients (varies from 10-20) Manageable as seniors (consultants & registrars) were very approachable and reachable even if not on ward (ie in clinics or bronchoscopy) Useful weekly teaching Very easy to meet portfolio requirements with CBD and mini CEX as seniors keen on development Generally very competent nursing staff who can help opposed to surgical wards Exposure to practical procedures like chest drain, pleural USS, taps etc Good exposure to organisation, time management, management of common emergencies and NOK discussions 1 in 5 on calls in MAU / Medicine ward cover (weekday) 1 in 5 on calls on weekend either post take or medicine ward cover

Very friendly environment with supportive consultants. Unfortunate, occasional old boys club atmosphere, but never degrading to trainees. 1:3 Nights and 1:3 Weekends across 6 weeks. 2 on-call. Usually SpR + SHO but occasionally SHO+SHO and not necessarily airway trained as Anaesthetics on-site. Manageable workload, 3-4 referrals a day and 1-2 per night. 2x dedicated on call rooms with phone. Separate doctors office. Canteen is poor and expensive. Muffin break is eveb more expensive.