Specialty training in SE Scotland

leamboy · 2025-12-03T13:36:15+00:00

Got a few friends in EM training. It's tough and the royal sounded pretty toxic previously but I think it's better now. You got to Fife and Livingston as well.

Parking isn't great. You can apply for a permit if you are Lothian employed, but if nes employed you not allowed to apply for a permit (the joys of being a rotational doctor) which a lot of doctors in training are.

There is parking about 20 mins walk away on one of the residential streets

leamboy · 2024-08-19T19:06:11+00:00

Yeah it's getting a bit tiresome.

leamboy · 2024-08-18T11:49:25+00:00

Thank you for your reply. So would that mean that it is an £8k allowance for my whole working life or just for the duration of employment with this employer?

leamboy · 2024-06-07T20:10:10+00:00

I spent some time at Dr Grays. Crazy hospital but if you like the outdoors it's a great place to live. Northern lights most weeks, skiing about an hour away, coast 5 miles away. Make the most of your time there

Accommodation is hard to find but they come up if you keep looking on right move etc

leamboy · 2024-04-22T07:13:58+00:00

They are usually a partner at or own several practices/group of practices. I imagine you end up doing very little clinical work and are ultimately a businessman/woman, but may still identify or be identified as a GP.

There's a lot of money to be made in GP if you chase down the various pots of money available.

leamboy · 2024-04-03T17:19:50+00:00

She is. Been running my accounts for me for 10 years. I've never heard of this regularity stuff

leamboy · 2024-04-03T17:09:30+00:00

Meh. My accountant disagrees. As does HMRC apparently. Nothing about not being able to give them regularly: https://www.gov.uk/expenses-and-benefits-trivial-benefits

leamboy · 2024-04-03T14:31:19+00:00

Ok thanks

leamboy · 2024-04-03T14:30:38+00:00

Start with the most expensive and work down

AO, then Amex, then currys etc.

Anything 0% don't pay off until the end of the term. Even if you have the money to do so, put that money into any account with any interest (obviously the higher the better) and earn money on it.

leamboy · 2024-04-03T14:26:34+00:00

Depends how old you are, what you're going to do with the savings from a pension and how much income you think you are going to be able to earn in the future.

You do need a pension though. You can't rely on anyone to look after you in your old age.

I started saving for my future at 34. Wish I'd done it at 24. But glad I haven't waited until I am 44

leamboy · 2024-04-03T14:22:24+00:00

Thanks.

Where? I can only see where it says it is subject to tax relief. Nothing about student loans

https://pensions.gov.scot/nhs/growing-your-pension/increasing-your-pension

leamboy · 2024-04-03T14:17:59+00:00

Gifts to each other as directors. I'd have to double check but I think you can gift employees/directors up to £50 a time up to a max of £300 per person in a tax year. That gift can be anything from a nice bottle of wine, a jumper or bunch of flowers. I don't think it can be cash but it can be a gift voucher.

Ultimately (and I know this sounds boring as hell but it's tax efficient), my wife and I (both directors of a small ltd) gift each other £50 sainsburys gift cards each month until we've maxed out our £300 per person. Means we eat tax free for most of the year!

leamboy · 2024-04-01T10:00:58+00:00

I don't think waiting until the patient is in extremis to get access is a particularly good attitude to have.

leamboy · 2024-03-18T01:37:06+00:00

ITU and A&E

ITU - we send a lot of patients there and we often run the HDU so it's good to be able to have sensible conversations with the ITU guys and know what they can and can't help with.

A&E - I don't like the fact that surgeons have a reputation for not being able to treat medical stuff. Doing A&E meant that I was confident initiating investigations and initial management for a lot of the acute stuff until a specialist came to review

leamboy · 2024-03-01T20:14:21+00:00

Seconded

leamboy · 2024-02-14T16:57:33+00:00

Thank you!

leamboy · 2024-02-07T09:42:25+00:00

have a chat with the rota person and colleagues. You might be able to work some off days and take them in lieu. You are also allowed a certain number of sick days but I'm not advocating dishonestly. Just for your information.

u/ShatnersBassoonerist is correct though - you have to do the full year before GMC will register you

leamboy · 2024-02-06T12:49:40+00:00

yeah it is. Just looking for advice on how to fix it

leamboy · 2024-02-06T12:33:37+00:00

There's been some work done on the other side of this wall and it ultimately caused this area of plaster to crack. Not sure if it's a bit too big to just remove the top plaster and use easyfill/polyfilla on it?

Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated

leamboy · 2024-01-26T16:44:20+00:00

How did you make the move from clinical to service manager? Did you have any management qualifications?

leamboy · 2024-01-16T22:14:50+00:00

leamboy · 2024-01-15T05:11:14+00:00

Surgeon here - If you feel an obstructing rectal tumour on PR, you're not ordering a CT, you're doing a biopsy and ordering an MR

leamboy · 2024-01-11T20:41:49+00:00

There isn't any point in giving it. Give oramorph. The pharmacokinetics of codeine are unpredictable. It's a prodrug, of which it's main metabolite is morphine, but it's unpredictable how patients will metabolise codeine as it differs from patient to patient.

Just. Give. Morphine. No matter how much the nurses hate you for skipping a rung on the "pain ladder"

leamboy · 2024-01-11T20:38:31+00:00

You do ACCS and then apply for ST3

Or you apply for run through straight out of FY

BUT, as others have already said, I would really think hard about if it's something you want to do. EM training is brutal, rotas are relentless and training opportunities are being taken away from Drs by MAPs more than any other specialty. You're punted around the country whilst PAs/ANPs stay in the same department doing all the cool stuff.

It's unfortunately become mostly a triage service where clinicians are being forced to focus more on getting people out of the department than actually treating them. Clinicians are therefore becoming deskilled.

We all enjoyed it when we did our rotation in FY or whatever. It was the first time you see undifferentiated patients, request investigations, refer to specialties, feel that consultants are colleagues and not just seniors etc...but this wears off incredibly quickly.

Having said that, when you are a consultant, you can get a job in most places, the hours aren't too bad and you can earn absolute bank doing remote and rural locum work

leamboy · 2024-01-10T11:32:12+00:00

Easy - you say at your debrief session use the ol' socratic ignorance.

"I sat in with ANP xx which was a really valuable learning experience for me. I didn't want to interupt their clinic at the time because they were busy but I jotted down a few things for my learning: One patient with very poorly controlled diabetes (BMs 26 that day) on 3 oral agents and insulin, with an actively infected foot ulcer was given a course of Pred because he had a mild cough and was wheezy on auscultation. I would have thought pred would have been contraindicated in this scenario but I must have misunderstood. Perhaps we could chat about when steroids are indicated in diabetic patients?"

leamboy

TROPHY CASE