Job Summary
This post is split into 3 months Ambulatory Medicine (described here) and 3 months Medicine (see the Medicine page under hospital rotations).
You will work with a variety of Medical Consultants and your role will include:
- Daily reviews of day hospital patients
- Regular reviews of patients on the Emergency Assessment Unit (EAU)
- Seeing patients referred by GPs to the daily rapid access clinic
- Clerking of new ambulatory referrals.
This is an acute medicine job managing patients who need secondary care investigations and treatment but don’t need admission to a hospital bed. You will clerk new referrals from GPs and sometimes from ED. Patients return over a number of days for further tests and treatments so it’s a bit like having a virtual ward. There are also follow-up reviews of patients recently discharged from the wards and EAU.
The evening shifts in the EAU are clerking on the medical take.
The weekend shifts are primarily based on the medical wards. There will be a list of patients needing more senior review over the weekend. You will also support the F1 covering the wards. If time allows you will also clerk on EAU.
Location
Rowan Ambulatory Unit, The Horton General Hospital, Banbury
Shift pattern (lates/nights/weekends etc)
Normal working days of 8 hours with varied start times between 8am and 11am and varied finish times between 4pm and 7pm.
One late shift (5-10pm) on EAU on a three week rolling rota: week 1 – two late shifts, week 2 – two late shifts, week 3 – one late shift.
Weekend EAU cover 9am-7pm on one in three rota.
Top tips for extra opportunities (e.g. teaching / skills )
When needed, liaise closely with radiology, cardiac investigations and specialist consultants. This can ensure better outcomes for patients, avoid admissions and also give you lots of advice and tips about managing cases.
Highlights
This was a very busy job but it was also good fun and I learnt a lot. Many of the cases are just beyond the management options available in primary care so it’s still very relevant for GP training and helps you to see things which could have been done differently or earlier which might have avoided the need to refer to secondary care.
Challenges
There is always consultant cover but you have the opportunity to work very independently forming management plans and discharging patients so it’s really important to be confident but also to know your limitations.
The details are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change.