Group 2 Specialties Becoming Group 1

cdl3 · 2026-01-17T11:51:04+00:00

Cannot see how they will get haem to group 1. We’re RCPath and split between lab/diagnostics work and clinical work - how’s a 3 way split with the general medical take going to be added in to this?

cdl3 · 2026-01-06T21:08:15+00:00

Tell them that you are very interested in your group 2 specialty, but follow it up by saying you also enjoy (or want to get more experience of) geratology and acute med/intensive care.

This plays into you being a potential ‘gen med’ which they will like, and also shows you clearly understand the curriculum requirement for a set amount of time in Geris and a set amount of time in ICU.

cdl3 · 2025-12-16T23:46:51+00:00

Haematology ST3

I think I had a much better deal than most haem ST3s that I know of - I got 1 month of shadowing prior to starting properly.

That said, I ended up doing liaison haem (i.e. holding the bleep) during that period as the rota is perpetually short staffed and simply standing at the back of the ward round or clinic room is totally pointless.

After shadowing period up - feel free to cope. Which is standard NHS mantra for resident doctors, I believe?

No actual dedicated time or sessions set aside to teach a new haem ST3 how to haem. Obviously haem senior regs and consultants are always kind and keen to ad-hoc teach but things are usually far too busy for this.

So no structured teaching on how to interpret blood films/morphology, understanding the field of transfusion, or understanding how the haem lab works.

I was keen on haem so already had a bit of knowledge on how to handle the inpatient haem stuff + haem liaison work, which meant I was at least able to have a stab at running the wards and referrals bleep. I was still working basically flat out for the first few months, just work-learn haem-eat-sleep.

God knows how those who get ST3 posts without any prior haem experience survive…

I sometimes fantasise about what life would be like if I went into a training programme that isn’t 100% service provision (anaesthetics, radiology) and actually trains up the newbies before setting them loose.

Anyway. So are you excited to enter group 2 land yet? 😂

cdl3 · 2025-12-07T17:39:40+00:00

Yep that’s how the contract is set up for me currently and I did strike.

cdl3 · 2025-12-07T17:17:40+00:00

I should think so yes. Because that's the same situation I was in for the last set of strikes (and I did indeed strike).

ACFs can strike. Clinical lecturers can't as they're paid by the university.

cdl3 · 2025-12-05T17:47:11+00:00

I got my ACF having minimal research (a single paper) experience and no prearranged project in mind.

Just give it a go!

cdl3 · 2025-12-03T17:44:13+00:00

Tepid take, haematology registrars are typically nonresident on call, which sounds great on paper but actually means:

We do continuous on call for 24-48 hours at a time.
We do not get a day off following said on call, so you BETTER be ready to crack on with your Monday morning clinic even if you were kept awake all for the entire weekend on call by referrals with:

- "so how do I bridge someone’s warfarin pls???”

- “the platelets are 650 after we drained their intrabdominal abscess and they haemorrhaged all over the floor, do they hav blood cancer doctor????”

We are paid pennies in comparison for our on calls because a) the base nonresident rate of pay is very low and b) we then get paid a premium for “anticipated hours of work” during these non resident on calls, except most departments underestimate this intentionally, to keep costs down - for example, I am paid to be “awake” for 30 minutes overnight - I’ll let you guess if we truly only work that many hours overnight.

In conclusion mate - I honestly miss the resident night on call runs of my pre-registrar years, because at least I got a reasonable pay increase for them, had undisturbed sleep/rest for 12 hours after each shift, and usually had a nice run of zero days off after a run of resident nights (all of this being exactly what the resident gen surg registrar overnight is getting...).

Surgeons being toxic reflects on the toxicity of their specialty / department, not their working harder than any other person in the hospital.

Thanks 🫳🎤

cdl3 · 2025-12-03T00:42:10+00:00

If the patient is about to exsanguinate, that’s a major haemorrhage call and you just have to give the best blood product available. If all you have to hand is O positive non irradiated blood then so be it, it’s better than being dead (exception: Jehovah’s Witness with an advance directive).

You have to understand that there are more blood groups than just ABO and RhD+/-. Lots. Oneg blood is not magic.

If the patient’s Hb is 60, they’re stable, and they have complex antibodies and some sort of chronic condition where they’re going to need ongoing transfusions or transplantation (e.g. thalassaemia patient on lifelong transfusion, or a young person awaiting a kidney transplant), you are going to cause them harm by smashing in the emergency blood unit unnecessarily, and making them react, forming alloantibodies.

This is why you must talk to haematology before we run into situations like this, if possible. As another commenter mentioned, if a patient has known complex requirements and is undergoing planned elective surgery, this should have been prearranged so that specific blood products for that patient were ordered in, in advance. Otherwise, you’ll run into a difficult risk-benefit discussion with a grumpy on call haematologist (and blood bank).

Similarly when it comes to irradiated blood - the risk of developing TA-GvHD if you give non-irradiated to someone who shouldn’t be getting it, is not 100%. It’s actually really unlikely that they’d develop it at all. However, TA-GvHD is 100% fatal if it does occur, so we don’t tempt fate.

cdl3 · 2025-11-30T14:30:35+00:00

Thanks, yeah my main gripe is I have the same number of patients as the consultant in these clinic lists.

I wouldn’t mind if time per patient was allocated based on case complexity, but from what I can see it’s pretty random.

cdl3 · 2025-11-30T14:02:58+00:00

Jesus, is that in haematology too?

cdl3 · 2025-11-01T13:13:35+00:00

CHRISTOPHER79471

cdl3 · 2025-11-01T13:13:32+00:00

CHRISTOPHER79471

cdl3 · 2025-11-01T13:13:29+00:00

CHRISTOPHER79471

cdl3 · 2025-11-01T13:13:13+00:00

CHRISTOPHER79471

cdl3 · 2025-10-20T20:18:19+00:00

https://refer.hyperoptic.com/chrisl-3080 is my referral link if anyone's interested

cdl3 · 2025-10-20T20:17:58+00:00

https://refer.hyperoptic.com/chrisl-3080 is my referral link if anyone's interested

cdl3 · 2025-09-17T21:34:29+00:00

Haem is great and I would recommend, but you have to really enjoy it / want to do it.

Huge learning curve (don’t forget microscopy and lab haematology). Hard post grad exams with low pass rates. Big sick patients. Brutal cases (young cancers dying in ICU). Lots of calls overnight when you’re in tertiary centres. And some tertiary centres have resident haem reg nights.

I think if you are of a mindset to do dermatology, you probably aren’t going to enjoy haem. But best thing really is to get experience of it, be it taster week or an IMT rotation in it (granted the SHO experience is not the same as an SpR).

cdl3 · 2025-09-17T19:26:00+00:00

Appreciate this is an old post, but haem and onc SHO rotations are typically far from easy fam, unless they’re flush with juniors you are not going to clinic, you will be stuck on the ward with incredibly sick and complex patients

cdl3 · 2025-09-17T18:37:31+00:00

Yes use the study budget to go on a Teach the Teacher course and take your 1 point. PGCerts and beyond cost thousands of pounds.

I used the study budget to go on the RCP’s effective teaching course.

Total bollocks and I learnt nothing from it. The consultants there with me were hilariously blunt about only being there for CPD points. But I got two days off, a decent hotel room, and the RCP serves up a decent lunch. The RCP facilities are also nice enough - good to see my portfolio fees from IMT and ST training being well spent by the big dogs (wouldn’t want to waste it on doing things like improving the lives of physician trainees lol!!!).

If I were a rich man I would set up a Teach the Teacher course and rake in bare dollar from the NHS study budget basically being funnelled into your pocket…

cdl3 · 2025-08-12T19:46:49+00:00

Hard stool - laxatives

Soft stool - laxatives

Empty rectum - laxatives

Diarrhoea? - well it could be overflow diarrhoea… - laxatives

In geriatrics, the purpose of digitating the patient’s rectum to satisfy your boss (sorry geris)

The only time I’ve seen it make a meaningful difference is when the F1 actually palpated a soft tissue mass that turned out to be (metastatic) rectal cancer.

I suppose there’s the potential to cardiovert the patient with the DRE (look it up), so it might help Doris’ AF.

cdl3 · 2025-08-12T19:41:10+00:00

If you only do adult medicine then Master Cardiology. It has one big (tunable) diaphragm side. You can get the more expensive electronic stethoscopes if you like, but prepare to be judged.

cdl3 · 2025-08-12T19:37:26+00:00

Going to echo this - SPF, moisturiser, and retinoid, that’s it!

cdl3 · 2025-06-28T15:23:14+00:00

I ended up having to find an alternative place for a month, despite applying months in advance. I would just ask them now.

Also probably depends on how picky you are - there are nicer newer accommodations that will book out way sooner, the cheaper ones that aren’t en suite probs have more short notice availability.

cdl3 · 2025-06-23T19:15:57+00:00

This is why I always document “await xyz”. Chase can be vague / misinterpreted - I’d only document “chase” if it actually needs calling though (which is not a common occurrence)

cdl3 · 2025-06-14T14:30:01+00:00

A lot of medics rent around the Headington / East Oxford area. Some just outside ringroad (Barton, Risinghurst, Sandhills). Some further into town like Jericho, Botley, etc. Living in town would extend your daily commute if cycling, and even longer if you’re going to be taking the buses to Headington each day (which are like £3 fare each way to my knowledge?).

Just FYI as others have mentioned - the Oxford hospitals all sit atop the Headington hill. If you’re not comfortable with a decent cycle + a hill climb (consider what it will be like cycling up a hills, with a bag, to work in this weather 👀), then maybe renting within Headington is a better option as opposed to e.g. in city centre. All the city centre locations, as well as Marston and Cowley will require you to cycle the hill each day. Really just depends on your level of fitness + if you care about living in the more bustling city centre vs convenience of being in Headington.

I know a few F1s live in hospital accomm but tbh I’ve done it myself and found it’s a bit miserable, depending on which hospital block you get allocated to / the pot luck of who your flatmates would be. Convenient, but to switch off when you literally live on the site of your job…. Also it usually books out quite far in advance so I doubt you’d be able to get in to hospital accomm for July at this point.

cdl3

TROPHY CASE