As a new foundation doctor, there are lots of things that would have been useful to know prior to graduating! Thankfully, a number of barriers, particularly the financial ones, that you face throughout your time at medical school are less of an issue when you start work. However, it’s important to remember you won’t have an income between student loan instalments finishing at graduation and getting your first payslip, which is generally a period of three months. It’s definitely worth keeping this in mind throughout your final years of university, and making sure you either have savings or some part-time work to cover yourself for this period!

As a foundation doctor, you are still expected to develop your portfolio and build a bank of evidence to demonstrate your continual personal and professional development. Every year the competition for specialty training increases, so it’s worth being aware of the requirements for this. Even if you don’t know what you’d like to do after the foundation programme, evidence that shows you’ve developed teaching and leadership skills is very important. There are lots of opportunities to gather evidence for this throughout your foundation years, and it’s always worth speaking to your educational supervisor for support in doing so! If you do know what specialty you’d like to go into, making contacts throughout foundation training, undertaking a taster week and getting involved in a quality improvement project are all really beneficial things to do.

First published: 10 April 2024

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