Table 2. Verbatim comments about personal experience of FY1Ds.

Feeling unprepared for the FY1 role “Medical School is the Foundation of knowledge which you need’ but as for preparing you for your actual FY1 role, no”. “How to do a death certificate; that is one thing that medical school doesn’t teach you”. “I was told to go home [from induction] and come back for the night shift. I remember coming the first few weeks and everyone seemed to know everyone else’s names. I felt very lost, little things that I missed out on because I started on night”. “It took me three months to find where the toilet was”. “My first shift I was desperate for a drink of water after a few hours and I hadn’t stopped but I didn’t know where to get one from”.
Feeling FY1 affects personal and social life “Some of the on call rotas are not very good for sports. My team were not happy with me missing lots of training and lots of weekends”. “You are restricted in terms of certain weekends and nights. Often you leave late so things planned for that evening you may not be able to do”. “We do blocks of 12 days on call in a row; three or four long days, followed by three or four nights then three or four shorter days in a row – difficult switching your body clock back from night to days”. “I’ve taken a long time to learn the balance between work and taking things home --- It is knowing how to balance things, when to get exercise etc. ---My career choices have changed quite significantly. Looking at the female [medical] registrars--- coming in on their weekends, their days off --- It just made me sit back and think. You only get one chance to be here so I want to explore and experience everything that is out there rather than working all the time”.
Enjoying FY1 and finding it rewarding “The best thing is when you help somebody and they or their family are so grateful to you. The training and sitting down and reading the books which you have been doing for the last five years, you can actually put into practice and you feel useful”. “That’s [teaching medical students] the one thing that I actually did enjoy even on my first job”.