The first few weeks as a house officer

Fear is normal

Everyone’s scared on their first day. Luckily you’re employed at one of the most supportive hospitals in the country with a 24hr crash team and numerous Registrars onsite all the time. There is always someone happy to listen, whether that be your friends outside of work, family, PGY1 peers, your Education Supervisor, Consultant, GP, or someone else.

If in doubt, ASK

Everyone knows you’re new and so expects you to ask questions. A lot. No matter how scary or disinterested your Registrar or Consultant may seem, if you don’t understand something – ASK. There are other more experienced House Officers who are happy to help and the Senior Nurses know how the system works. Listen to them.

Get organised

Good time management is an essential part of succeeding in your first year. Creating order in your workplace and home environments, and predicting and planning for issues before they arise will lead to a much smoother experience.

Write things down

Don’t rely on your memory – it fails the best of us. Make lists and tick things off; you’re much less likely to miss something that way.

Be proactive

You are an important member of the team and you need to know what’s happening. Don’t hang back on ward rounds and if you don’t know the plan when the team is moving on – ASK.

Don’t sit on it

If you’ve got a problem, be it a personality clash with your Registrar, something at home, the workload or something completely different, talk about it early. There is always someone happy to listen.

Don’t do it if you’re not comfortable doing it

Remember, you’re a medical professional and you have a responsibility to know your limits and stick to them. This includes consenting for an unfamiliar operation or being asked to perform a procedure you’ve never done before.

If you’re sick, stay home

Just because you’re a doctor, it doesn’t mean you don’t get sick. If you’re sick, stay at home. You’ll recover faster and you won’t spread your illness to your colleagues and patients. Go home At the end of the day, go home. There is an on-call roster to cover after-hours, and no one will thank you for running yourself into the ground.

Be collegial

Notwithstanding the comment, “Go home”, above, don’t dump on your colleagues. We’re all in this together and it is amazing how much happier you’ll all be if you look out for each other and share the burden. This also applies to your relationships with other health professionals.

Eat, drink and go to the toilet

Take time out to attend to your basic needs! It’s amazing how much more productive the rest of your shift will be and, with rare exceptions, most things can wait for half an hour.

You don’t know it all

Nobody expects you to know everything. As above, if you don’t know, then ask and best not to go comparing yourself to your Registrar or Consultant – they’ve been doing it for a lot longer than you have!

Savour the successes

Take pride and pleasure when things go well. Doctors spend too long beating up on themselves.

Talk about it

If you don’t tell someone when you’re in trouble, then no one can help you. There are always people you can talk to and tackling issues early affords much better outcomes for everyone.

Adapted from “Survival Tips for JMOs”, Council for Early Postgraduate Training in South Australia (CEPTSA).