Thames Valley Oxford Deanery Foundation Programme 2018

Hi!
I've been allocated to Thames Valley Oxford deanery this year and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for trust preferences?
In particular any advice in terms of commuting, social life and teaching and support for F1s in the different hospitals would be much appreciated!
Thank you in advance!

Reply 1

nexttime

I worked in Reading and Wexham.

Reading has a good reputation, and has a very active mess. Good hospital at night system.

Wexham really struggles to recruit and as such you can come across some highly questionable staff. However I actually had a good time there and do feel they at least try to look after their staff (as they can't afford to lose them!) which is better than many places.

Oxford is obviously the place people want to be. Gen med is notorious for being horrible, but then it kind of is everywhere isn't it.

Don't know much about Milton Keynes and stoke Mandeville. People tend to not want to go there.

Reply 2

Helenia

Original post by cat1894

Not sure if you're the same person who posted in the Current Med Students forum, so I've C&Ped my post from there. I've worked in all the hospitals nexttime hasn't, and vice versa!

I'm a higher trainee in Oxford deanery, so things may be different for FY docs, but here's my 2p:

The JR is big and busy. Parking is awful. OUH is a split-site trust, which includes the JR itself, the Churchill, the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and the Horton in Banbury - rotations may include any or all of these! Clinically it's obviously very good, with pretty much every specialty covered and lots of world-leading experts, but as an F1/2 I imagine it's easy to feel lost in the big machine - I did as an ST3. I don't know how competitive it is to do a year there, I would guess it depends more on the specific rotations you're after.

Bucks Healthcare - Stoke Mandeville and Wycombe hospitals (with a few rare community placements in Amersham). A lot of jobs are split across both sites, which is a bit of a pain in the arse for commuting. Stoke is the "hot" site with most of the acute medical specialties (except cardiology and stroke

), the proper A&E (Wycombe has an UCC), paeds, all emergency surgery, plastics, burns, labour ward plus the National Spinal Injuries Centre (yay for Paralympics, don't mention Jimmy Savile

). Wycombe is predominantly for elective surgical cases plus cardiology and stroke, as well as quite a few outpatient clinics, though this is less relevant for foundation trainees. Overall I like it as a trust, they're very supportive and enthusiastic about teaching and the hospitals are decent-sized but not so huge you get lost all the time.

Milton Keynes has a bad rep both as a town and a hospital, but I had a good year there. Very busy, relatively under-resourced as the town is growing faster than the hospital's capacity, but a decent doctors' mess within the main hospital building and I felt very supported, though I know that not all departments were as good as mine!

I've never worked at Royal Berks or Wexham, though I know others on here have. RBH has a decent reputation, Wexham...less so.

As for where to live, there are lots of options. Quite a few live in Oxford and commute out to placements, though that can be quite far. Oxford is very expensive even when renting, probably close to London prices. Thame is popular with more senior docs who are permanently in the region. I live in MK but am one of the only trainees who does! There is hospital accommodation available at all of them but I don't know how nice it is or how reasonably priced.

Thames Valley Oxford Deanery Foundation Programme 2018

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