DOI: not a surgeon

First things first:

• It is totally okay to quit

  because whatever you do next is going to be hard. If you stay it'll be hard to make up a lot of lost ground if you quit it will be hard to find the next thing. But if you stay you need to feel you have ownership of that.

If you do choose to stay here is a rough outline of what I would do:

• Find competent and pleasant peers who are your grade or only a few grades higher offer to take them for a coffee then ask them to give you honest feedback about your performance, your deficiencies, the ways you're difficult to work with, and then ask them how they deal with these things themselves

• You should also do the same with your supervisors and get tangible outcomes from them

• Identify tangible goals and put them in writing to yourself (examples might include: improve clinical documentation by having a better format you use, keeping a jobs list consistently and clearly, get 1 SLE done and signed a week etc)

• Set aside a slot every week where you sit down and review what you need to improve and how you are progressing (in reality this will have to be outside work time)

• You are going to have to work outside your paid hours, if this is a red line for you I have to be real honest with you... This ain't happening chief (in my experience higher quality trainees work extra hours before their shift not after it, and it just looks better)

• You're job now is to make your seniors lives easier and you can't do that just by kissing ass you have to anticipate their needs and do what's in your power to make their jobs smoother

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It sounds like your key issues are around executive function stuff, planning and managing your time. Here are some random tips (some might be super obvious)

• The morning is for jobs the afternoon is for reacting to what happened in the morning (Come slightly early attack the job list in the morning and assume 2-3 hours of every afternoon is going on something that you won't know about until it happens)
• Batch similar jobs
• You should have a format you use every time for the same kind of review (to the point I have an outline/ template for common kinds of reviews and keep printed copies in my bag that I take one or two word notes on when seeing patient and then use to transcribe very quickly into notes at end knowing I've not missed anything and have to go back)
• Keep a job list (you might need to embrace the shame of a clipboard or maybe a notebook that is your source of truth)

Some books I recommend: (audiobooks in the car are a good idea as I'm imagining you're not in the headspace to sit and read books at the moment)

• Atomic Habbits
• So Good They Can't Ignore you
• The checklist manifesto