02/08/2026
Can’t believe it’s 10 years ago this week I graduated Medicine and became a junior doctor. My first job was an F1 at Royal United Hospital in Bath and I remember thinking I’d made the wrong career choice after my first week - couldn’t do cannulas, didn’t know how to bleep someone to ask for help (and was worried they’d think I was rubbish) and I had a grumpy consultant as my senior.
This picture is actually me in my final year of Med School, at Southampton General, waiting to scrub in to assist a C-Section at about 3am. We had to get signed off as having watched a birth and I’d sat in with the labouring woman since 7am the morning before. I was knackered having been there 20 hours but needed it signed off so didn’t go home 😂 then she ended up having a caesarean after all that and I still had to go and see another natural birth 🙄.
Time definitely flies and I definitely don’t miss nights/scrubs but I do miss some old colleagues along the way, and the doctors mess and the team spirit (and sometime the odd bit of adrenaline in acute medicine!)👩⚕️👨⚕️🧑⚕️
