Experience of a CPSP Scholarship Program Trainee : Acute Medicine

In order for all the readers to have a better perspective of the Scholarship Program across different specialties, I have asked my colleagues to write out their experience up till now. Read on to find out more about the Personal experience of one of the trainee working as a Junior Clinical Fellow at Russell Hall Hospital, Dudley, UK

Whatever we plan in our lives, nature will always surprise us with some new twists. I never ever thought of moving to UK during my college days, yet here I am doing medicine. I have been frequently asked by many colleagues about my experience in UK, so here I am sharing my experience.

I moved here couple of months ago and am working in Acute Medicine. I was in my 4th year of training back in Pakistan in a private institute. I was asked to start as SHO in acute medicine here and after couple of month, now I am being promoted to Medical Registrar level. In Pakistan, training system is quite variable. In Private institute working hours are quite tough till the last year of training while in government hospital as you progress in your training years, duty hours become less intensive. I was working almost 80 hour a week back in Pakistan despite being in my last year of training. Here in UK my working hours are 48 hour a week, with weekends off. That was a pleasant change . Working as SHO means working like a Pakistani year 1 trainee. In Pakistan every postgraduate trainee has some juniors with him and he prepares round before consultant arrives. While here trainee and consultant all arrive at 9am and start round together. No daily progress notes or follow ups. And Each consultant has one or two SHO with him to do round and then to carry out round orders. Back in Pakistan, there is no acute medicine specialty, which was something new to me. All medicine patients are admitted through ED to acute medicine, there stay is maximum 48 hour in acute medicine ward then they are moved to their appropriate specialty like resp, gastro, geriatrics etc. It would sound absurd but it is good for general medicine trainee as you get to see all sort of patients related to all specialties. It enriches your clinical acumen. There are lot of protocols and paper work, but if you have trained in private institute like AKU, Shifa or Shaukat Khanum then you will take just couple of days to acquaint yourself with new system. Otherwise it can take couple of weeks. Good thing about this program is that every trainee is given 4 weeks to shadow with other experienced colleague initially.

I moved here because pay was less and duty hours were quite tough so for respite I came here. But for a person who will come from a Government institute, he will feel that job is tougher here. As in senior years in government institute, call frequency is reduced to 2-3 calls a month. Here oncall is 12 hour duty. There is one week of one call duty 12 hours daily for 5 days straight and this cycle is repeated after every 6 weeks. This 12 hour duty is very busy and you have to be on your toes. It is comparable to 12 hour ER duties back home in Pakistan and rest of the weeks daily 8 hour duty with weekend off.

I had clear goals when I came here. By this program, I have been given full GMC registration without plab that is a big plus. I planned to do my MRCP, to make some money to support my family, to travel around the world and to get my CMT competencies signed. I had trained enough in Pakistan in internal medicine, so it was never my primary goal but the variety of cases that I am seeing in acute medicine is obviously increasing my experience further. While being here I have saved some money Alhamdulillah (single person can easily save 1000-1400 pound a month), I have travelled around whole UK on weekends, visited turkey, Doha and planning to go to some other countries in upcoming months, enjoying my free time, passed my MRCP 1 and going to appear in MRCP 2 this month. I am getting my CMT competencies signed off by my supervisor, so that in future, if I want to come back in UK, it will help me in getting training slot.

One gray area about this program is uncertainty about eligibility in FCPS part II exam. We were told to get our supervisor changed but despite emails RTMC have not responded. As always, it takes ages to get reply from RTMC CPSP by email. So don’t know by the end of training when we will apply for exam, will they create any nuisances are not. Although we have been assured that we will be given experience certificate by regional cpsp centre birmigham that will be accepted by RTMC but what about our elogbooks that’s a grey area. We are actively pursuing this issue and hope to get it resolved in few weeks. As I am from the first batch here, may be in the upcoming batches it will get better.

Final verdict, I am very satisfied with my decision Alhamdulillah. It all depends on one owns circumstances and goals. What you want to achieve with this program. For general medicine junior fellows this is very good program.

ACUTE MEDICINE
Inernational Training Fellow
Russells Hall Hospital
Dudley
UK

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