Acute Medicine for first F1 job - nervous! How bad will it be?

Hi, so my first F1 job is in acute med at a tertiary hospital (RVI Newcastle). I am imagining awful hours and stressed AF with the demands of the job. There are some rota issues so I don't yet have a work schedule or a rota. Are the hours going to be horrid? Is the job itself going to be a baptism of fire? Any tips to prepare?

Thank you

I started on this exact job back in 2016 strangely enough. They even decided to let me start on nights!

I had the same apprehensions regarding starting on the suite but actually i think it was great in terms of hitting the ground running.

Not sure if they still do it the same way but we did 2 months suite then 2 months base ward. Suite was excellent as basically got to see a wide variety of presentations with fairly quick senior post-take and therefore good for learning. On nights we had teams (2F1, 2SHO, 2SpR) with F1 doing back of house. Again well supported with plenty of people to ask for help when required.

Whilst it is a tertiary hospital, most stuff was still bread and butter so basically knowing the medical emergencies section of OHCM was sufficient to make an initial assessment, begin treatment and then discuss with someone higher up the chain if required.

Shifts were all 12.5 hours but if i remember right there was also a lot of compensatory time off, including basically a full week each month on the suite (again rota may have changed).

Ah thank you! I've heard stories of F1's being left unsupported at the RVI, so that's a relief to hear!

Should I be expecting to do 4 x 12.5hr shifts per week? Can you remember how many weekends/nights you did?

If i remember correctly it was a maximum of 5 shifts in a week. Generally didn't feel unsupported.

Rota was something like Thurs - Sun nights, then Thurs/Fri days, then Mon-Wed days, then Sat/Sun days straight into Mon - Wed nights followed by a week off (until next Thurs nights).

Generally i didn't mind that rota but it may have changed with the new contract.