With the Great Application Race slowing down to a halt, I wonder briefly if I’ll miss the continual compulsive checking of various deanery websites to confirm the closing dates and the battle to keep track of which ones have already been completed – hmm, probably not!!

Filling in all the forms has prompted me to get on and try and bulk out my CV even more with courses, audits and of course chase after every whiff of a publication. I’m really not sure how many F2 doctors/ex-SHOs will be able to list their best 5 publications (out of how many!?) and ten recognised courses by the end of the year (do they even GET study leave now?), but maybe there are lots! I have enough trouble trying to get onto an ECDL course as the connecting for health funding seems to have ceased and our hospital has been too busy to take on new staff for the last year. I have also been blowing the dust off my portfolio which was hastily created for last years applications and started filling it up with lots of signed pieces of paper and documents to have my consultant go through it with me later. As long as it looks full of paper I’m sure he’ll be too intimated to open it and check whether or not they are relevant pieces of paper!

I’m think I’ve become a bit of a bully to the medical students at work and not just because I enjoy it either! It’s mostly because I’m currently studying for my MRCS exams and feel the need to burden everyone else with my studying. These poor 3rd years are receiving the brunt of it – the other day I asked one bewildered girl to explain the relative embryology and blood supply of the colon to her peers. She couldn’t understand why “From the aorta” wasn’t a good enough response and now has to do a presentation on it next week.

I think I’d feel a lot worse if I hadn’t taught them the answer as their anatomy demonstrator when they were 2nd years!!