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career advice for the foundation year doctor (FY1 and FY2)

It is perhaps important to have some semblance of a plan when considering your potential 40 – 50 year career as a doctor. This post will hopefully give you some ideas to work with if you are not too sure about career choices, as many of us were at your stage. After 5 years of medical school, you’ve had a broad taste of all specialties but only at student level. The medical student level can vary vastly between different hospitals and different specialties and it’s not until you work as a foundation year (FY1 or FY2) doctor before you experience what it’s really like.

Regardless of your chosen path, it’s sometimes a good idea to consistently improve yourself in some aspect, whether that’s through good nutrition, exercise or advancing in skill on some form of pastime. Although 2020 is not the best of examples, one of the greatest aspects of living in the current era is the ease of access to good information. Never has there been a time you can flip open your laptop and learn about anything you like – the only caution you have to take is finding a reputable source. I attribute a lot of my ideas to reading and listening to audiobooks when I was younger, and I still do if I come across a book with an interesting idea. One of the more recent books I’ve read is Grit by Angela Ducksworth – it documents why certain people succeed and why others fail as well as the intriguing concept of grit. If you click the link you can net yourself a free audiobook, or two free audiobooks if you’re a prime member. The advantage of an audiobook of course is that you can listen to the author whilst doing chores, having a shower or commuting to work – something well worth getting into the habit of when you’re young.

When you’re just starting out in your career (early FY1), it’s important to learn the ropes of your specialty – this will usually involve managing the initial stages of medical emergencies, whether you wish to become a surgeon, physician or anaesthetist. Following on from this, perhaps 6 months into FY1 depending on your rate of progression, you might wish to consider the direction of your future career. On reflection, I would strongly recommend you to attempt the royal college exams at the soonest time possible. For budding physicians, MRCP part I can be attempted at the beginning of your FY2 year so I would start preparations 2 – 3 months prior to this. The popular MRCP Parts I and II Written Guide 2020 details the strategy you might wish to take when tackling the challenging royal college written exams. Once you get past the hurdles of the written exams, How to pass MRCP PACES in 8 weeks is a very useful strategy guide for maneouvring around the clinical exam prior to obtaining your MRCP diploma.

The benefit of attempting your chosen royal college exams early will be two-fold. Firstly it will get you in the right mindset when it comes to your work – for example, clerking in patients who come in with chest pain and COPD might become slightly mundane after a few months but if you’re revising for MRCP Part I then you might add some additional flair to your work, like calculating the HEART or CURB-65 score. Further reading will then make it clear which patients should be urgently discussed with specialties and which ones can be managed non-urgently. Secondly, you will also place yourself in a much better situation when it comes to you overall early career pathway. Now that internal medicine training (IMT) has been established you potentially have 4 years (FY2 – IMY3) to obtain your MRCP diploma when previously this was only 3 (FY2 – CT2). Giving yourself that option of attempting MRCP Part I in early FY2 gives you the option of retaking it multiple times and removes the time pressure that we all face. For instance, there is no harm in obtaining Parts I and II in FY2 before accruing focussed clinical experience in IMY1 to give yourself the best chance of passing PACES in IMY2. IMY3 can then be focussed towards obtaining procedural competencies and higher specialty applications. If you only commence revision for Part I in IMY1 for example, it might lead to getting PACES at the end of IMY2 or even beginning of IMY3 which perhaps makes things rushed.

The argument of not preparing too early for MRCP is a myth in my opinion as MRCP parts I and II are written exams that primarily assess your knowledge. For MRCP PACES this is understandable as it takes time to see enough patients and accrue sound clinical acumen prior to maximising your chances. Although it doesn’t net you extra points for IMT applications, attempting Part 1 early (whether you pass or fail) will undoubtedly show the interviewer that you have commitment to specialty.

This post’s advice would be applicable to foundation year doctors who have plans to become an anaesthetist or radiologist. Ultimately, your career does not define you as a person and you should pursue what will give you the best so-called work life balance. Take some time to look through the IMT recruitment website, or your equivalent core specialty, to get an idea of the marks akin to low hanging fruit – for example, organising a teaching programme at the local level (with some specific caveats) can net you 6 application points which is equivalent to if you had a MD degree! Ensure you enjoy your time as a foundation year doctor with little responsibility as this will change very quickly! Treat this as a grace period between medical school and becoming a fully-fledged professional. Listen to a free audiobook, read kindle unlimited for free, enjoy your life/career and hopefully good things will happen.

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