Junior Hospital Doctor Research Articles

Life as a junior hospital doctor's spouse

Life as a junior hospital doctor's spouse

Life as a junior hospital doctor's spouse

Life as a junior hospital doctor's spouse

Life as a junior hospital doctor's spouse

Life as a junior hospital doctor's spouse

Twenty years of vocational training in the west of Scotland.

To assess the career paths of doctors who completed vocational training in the west of Scotland between 1968 and 1987 and their views on the hospital component of their training. Retrospective analysis of the experience and opinions of vocationally trained doctors obtained from a postal questionnaire. West of Scotland. 1255 Doctors identified from Glasgow University records who had been vocationally trained in the west of Scotland between 1968 and 1987. Personal details; employment; jobs held currently; additional professional commitments; importance of hospital posts held in various specialties to respondents currently in general practice; and retrospective choice of hospital posts, based on subsequent experience. 619 Responses were received, 543 initially and 76 after a letter of reminder, from a possible total of 974 (excluding 153 questionnaires returned by the post office and 128 returned because of misunderstanding between the name and address); the overall response rate was therefore 64%. 607/619 (98%) Respondents were employed at the time of the study, of whom 517/607 (85%) were in general practice. A third (202/609) had been unemployed at some point, significantly more of them women (122/243, 50% v 80/376, 21%; chi 2 = 54.8, p less than 0.001). 510/563 (91%) Respondents held one postgraduate qualification or more, and 284/612 (46%) had additional professional commitments. The hospital posts most commonly held were in obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry, paediatrics, and medicine. Medicine, obstetrics, paediatrics, and dermatology were considered to be the most relevant hospital specialties by those who had experience of them and were now in general practice. Although ophthalmology and ear, nose, and throat were not rated highly by these doctors, other respondents wished that they had held posts in these specialties (32 and 40 respectively). During the hospital training 354/475 (75%) respondents thought that they were looked on as a junior hospital doctor and not as a trainee for general practice. Most of those who had entered vocational training were in employment, and most were in general practice. According to them, the most beneficial hospital posts for vocational training are medicine, obstetrics, paediatrics, and dermatology. Trainees should be encouraged to attend clinics in gynaecology, ear, nose, and throat, and ophthalmology.

Which type of hospital discharge report reaches general practitioners most quickly?

Patients recently discharged from hospital often have to be followed up by their general practitioners in the absence of any information from the hospital because of delays of several days before a discharge note reaches the practice. Some hospitals have combined the form for prescribing treatment for patients to take home with them with the discharge note. Thus a note is automatically written to the general practitioner for any patient who is given drugs to take home before that patient can be discharged. The note should be posted before, or at the time of, discharge. This combined discharge note and prescription form should reach the general practitioner more quickly on average than a separate discharge note, which is usually written when the junior hospital doctor can find time, not necessarily at the time of the patient's discharge. We carried out a study to assess this.

Clinical prognostic indices of fatality in elderly patients admitted to hospital with acute pneumonia.

Acute pneumonia in the elderly is a common and serious condition. The importance of key clinical features and physical signs presenting to the junior hospital doctor was prospectively assessed in 100 consecutive patients admitted acutely to two hospitals. The most significant finding is that elderly patients with pneumonia who are found to be acutely confused at the time of presentation or who gave a previous history of chronic brain failure are much more likely to die than others. Thus such patients should be assessed with particular attention to the early diagnosis and vigorous treatment of pneumonia.

How are junior hospital doctors employed? A study in North Western England

A survey was carried out in 1975 concerning the hours during which junior hospital doctors in the North Western Region were required to be on duty each week, the levels of workload expected of these doctors, and the service they were able to offer to patients. It is suggested that in some health districts much more effective use is made of available junior hospital doctor manpower than is apparently the case in others, and that these latter districts could reduce their duty requirements of certain junior hospital doctors, which would result in budgetary savings, without the need to cut the real level of patient services.