Need help. Anyone knows anything about the life of a hospital doctor.

Hi

Can anyone answer these questions.

A. The line of authority and accountability to and from personnel.

B. How they work in a team

C. How they organise (daily, weekly)

D. What routines they have e.g work schedules, briefing etc

E. How they report results

F. How they use scientific terminology

What’s this for?

There's a huge variation in roles under the umbrella of "hospital doctor." The answers for an FY1 on a generic ward-based job would be very different from, say, a consultant radiologist. What exactly are you looking for?

Reply 3

-Adz

Original post by Helenia

A surgeon

Reply 4

Helenia

OK, so even narrowing it down to "a surgeon" there's still a huge range of answers depending on the seniority. A FY1 in surgery will be spending most of their time on the wards and have a different routine from an SHO, which is different from a registrar, which is different from a consultant. Answers are in bold, but as your questions are a bit vague I might have missed the point on some of them - if you need more clarification just ask.

Original post by -Adz

Hi

Can anyone answer these questions.

A. The line of authority and accountability to and from personnel. A bit complicated. On a day-to-day basis, junior doctors are supervised clinically by more senior trainees and consultants. The consultants will have a clinical director within their department and an overall hospital medical director to whom they are answerable. There are also non-clinical divisional managers for surgical departments, who may technically be the doctor's line manager even if they never actually see them.

B. How they work in a team Lots of different teams - the old school "firm" of consultant with dedicated registrar, SHO and FY1 is on the way out, but there will still be some combination of doctors working together on the wards, seeing admissions and in theatre each day. Obviously there are also nurses, physios, dieticians etc on the ward which the doctors have to work with, and in theatres the team is different again with anaesthetists, ODPs and scrub staff.

C. How they organise (daily, weekly) Not sure what you mean by this.

D. What routines they have e.g work schedules, briefing etc Hugely variable. As a junior, generally they do a mix of normal days (~8am-5pm), long days/late shifts (finishing around 9pm) and nights. Working between 1:4-1:8 weekends is normal. There will be a mix of time on the wards, in A&E/surgical admissions, in outpatient clinic and in theatre - not all in one day!

E. How they report results Blood results, histopathology, radiology etc is usually all available on computers, if these need to be communicated to patients then one of the team will do this. If you mean results of operations, most surgical departments will have regular meetings where they review numbers of operations done and discuss any complications etc.

F. How they use scientific terminology It's just part of everyday language, there's not really a specific way of doing it. Obviously they usually try to make it more accessible when talking to patients, but like all specialties there's a certain amount of jargon when talking to each other

Is this h/w?

Watch "Junior Doctors" may help you get a bit of an insight

Reply 8

-Adz

Original post by OwlOfFire

Watch "Junior Doctors" may help you get a bit of an insight

I was about to start watching casualty again.

Reply 9

-Adz

Original post by Helenia

For B the question was ‘how they organise in a laboratory (daily,weekly etc)’

Reply 10

Helenia

Original post by -Adz

For B the question was ‘how they organise in a laboratory (daily,weekly etc)’

Surgeons do not routinely spend time in a laboratory.

Reply 11

-Adz

Original post by Helenia

Surgeons do not routinely spend time in a laboratory.

Yeah i know that, just wanted to let’s you know as you didn’t get what I had previously said. And thanks for the information really helped.

Reply 12

OwlOfFire

Original post by -Adz

I was about to start watching casualty again.

Casualty is more of the total emergency life threatening situations, it doesn't really show the day to day life of a doctor.

Reply 13

moonkatt

Original post by -Adz

I was about to start watching casualty again.

Good idea, Casualty will give you an excellent impression on not what only a doctor does, but an exact real life dramatisation of how a modern emergency department works. I'm sure the other healthcare professionals who use TSR will agree with me on the authenticity of this programme.