Reflections on the first four months as a consultant
I was once told that there are only two real turning points in a doctor’s career: the first is moving from medical school to FY1, and the second is the transition from registrar to consultant.
Over the past few months, I’ve started as a consultant, and I think I would agree with that statement. Starting FY1 was a huge adjustment in pace and responsibility, but there is something uniquely different about having your name at the end of the bed as the consultant. Patients and families now look directly to me for decisions and plans about treatment. If I don’t make those decisions, they often won’t happen—unless I actively ask someone else to step in.
I’m fortunate to work in a team with an excellent spirit of shared decision-making. I’m also grateful to my colleagues for allowing me to ask questions—big and small—at any time of the day. Thanks to them, I’ve never felt alone or pressured into making a decision I wasn’t comfortable with.
That said, the workload has certainly increased. Each day as a consultant has its own rhythm and intensity, which feels very different from life as a registrar. As a registrar, almost every day was non-stop from start to finish, but once I was off, I was truly off, with no lingering work. As a consultant, there’s more time for thoughtful consideration of patients and problems—but the work doesn’t disappear. When I step away to focus on research, the clinical workload builds up in my absence.
I began with a particularly heavy block of clinical work, which meant I almost completely neglected research for 6–8 weeks. Later in the year, I’ll have long stretches of uninterrupted research time, but that brings its own challenges. I now need to find a strategy that ensures patients who need reviews are still looked after safely, without my research flow being constantly disrupted.
In short, balancing a 50:50 clinical–research consultant role is proving tricky. But I’ll admit—I’m enjoying the clinical work even more than I had expected.
