Junior Clinical fellow

Starting off

Junior Clinical fellow is equivalent to the PG registrar or non PG registrar. There is the foundation doctor you will have to supervise.

Your work is mainly on the wards with some out patient clinics. You will have do on calls receiving acutely unwell patients from A and E and General Practitioners. You will have to clerk them in, make management plans and present them to registrar for review or consultant on post take rounds

Your regular day will also include procedures, Consultant led ward rounds and ward work including discharge summaries

Regular day

The day usually starts at 9 AM for medicine and 8 AM for all other specialities. The day starts with a review of patients on your ward, looking at new admissions, reviewing any sick patients or patients where there has been a significant change overnight. At 10 AM there is usually a board rounds which is a virtual ward round to plan the day. This is followed by a regular ward rounds of all patients on the ward. After you finish, you can attend clinic, study for your exams or do private study. You are still expected to be contactable by pager.

On Call day

This will start at 9 AM and you will have to carry the on call bleep for 12 hours and 30 minutes till the end of the shift. You are normally exempt from regular ward work unless you don’t have any new patients to clerk in. You will be told about patients being admitted, expected to clerk patients and institute management. You are expected to get senior review for any patients you are concerned about.

Zero day

In lieu for long working on your on calls you will get days off which are called zero days. Generally you will get 3 to 5 days for each completed cycle. Each cycle is the full 14 days and nights on calls (i.e. 7 – 12 hour days and 7 -12 hour nights on call). You are free on those days, but you might choose to use these days for clinics, audits or training for your exams. 

Other responsibilities

You will need to prepare for your exams and get through your membership exams. This level usually lasts for 3 years and you will need to prepare quite hard to get through all three sections during this time.