Welcome to my personal journal, where updates and stories from the world of surgery materialise. All views are my own.
Less Than Full Time Training in the NHS: What’s it Like?
I recently opted to reduce my working time from 100% full time to 80% less than full time and haven’t looked back. It’s genuinely one of the best things I’ve done to safeguard the durability of my training. Less than full time (LTFT) working in the NHS has been around for a while but it…
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Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgery in The NHS: How to Approach Registrar Training
Registrar training can be a real minefield to navigate. It feels like a truly all consuming process that can leave you struggling to pick up the pieces and figure out if you’re coming or going. I go into pretty honest detail in my own review of my first year of training which I’d recommend reading…
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I Completed 80 Arthroplasty Operations! My Experience of the Learning Curve
Learning how to perform an arthroplasty (a joint replacement) is a mandated part of the Trauma & Orthopaedic (T&O) Surgery national curriculum. As it stands, the T&O Specialty Advisory Committee (SAC) have advised that 80 operations as the first surgeon constitute the indicative number of arthroplasties that must be completed during Registrar training. This number…
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Ace the Medical Conference: Top Tips to Maximise your Experience
As you can see, a conference, by way of convention, is a gathering of people who share a similar interest. This inherently offers a multitude of opportunities because the raison d’être for the conference is to appeal to people like you. It accordingly makes it all the more easier to connect with other people at…
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What James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” Taught Me About Being a Surgeon
We are routinely infantilised and seemingly never permitted to take full credit for our positions. I wonder if you can relate? I recently read the well known book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. First published in 2018, this book has seen a surge of popularity over the years due to the easy-to-understand, stepwise approach offered…
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The VELYS Robotic-Assisted Arthroplasty Solution: A Guide for Trainees and Assistants
The VELYSTM Robotic-Assisted Solution for Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) burst onto the market in 2021, muscling in with various other robots on the market including the already well known Stryker Mako (TKA) system, which was launched in 2017. The VELYS robot reached the European market in 2023, after which it mainly saw uptake in the…
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Why “Deloading” is the Next Big Thing You Need to Try
We’re seemingly in the midst of a “hustle culture” storm, and it’s becoming increasingly ludicrous. Who can wake up the earliest, who can sleep the least, who can work the longest hours, who can make the most money, who can show off the most aggressively superfluous lifestyle.
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Did I Actually Enjoy my Night Shifts?
Ok, so the next few paragraphs I have written are fresh. Like, super fresh. I have literally just completed a set of 3 resident nights at a Major Trauma Centre (MTC) as of yesterday morning and really wanted to share my reflections with you to highlight my updated experience. Even as I type, my fingers…
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Paperboy
It was an icy cold winter morning, frost shimmering on hedgerows and driveways, concealing the hazardous black ice that lay underneath. I tried to mount my bike to ride up the hill but to no avail; the tyres simply defied friction. I conceded to trudge up the hill and push my bike instead, lugging the…
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Start Acting Like a Registrar
📆 As changeover approaches this week, it’s very normal to feel apprehensive.
😵💫 Stepping up to registrar training is a whirlwind of an experience and understandably anxiety inducing.
✋🏽 Gone are the days where we need to pretend we’re ok. Let’s normalise conversations about challenges, tribulations, wins, and losses.
💬 Emotional intelligence and psychological…
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Skin Knife, Please…
A theatre assistant pops their head around the coffee room door. “The patient is ready.” A moderate hint of urgency. The snap of a laptop lid and a rustle of fabric as the “in-between-cases” administrative work is hastily stowed. A final sip of water, a quick stretch, and a therapeutic eye rub. It’s time to…
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Mumbai. 07.11.22.
I’m going to preface this by saying that we didn’t actually see a lot of Mumbai itself for reasons that will become clearer in time. But because this was the beginning of our second leg of traveling, I thought it only appropriate to commence my first travel diary entry from this particular juncture. An additional…
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Nomadic Musings: Where Am I?
It’s hard to know where to start, to be quite frank. Almost four months have passed since I finished my core surgical training and out of those four months I have been traveling abroad for just shy of ten weeks. Taking time out to travel was something that my fiancée and I had been discussing…
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Simplifying Life After CST
It’s been almost nine months since my last journal entry. A lot has happened during that time. Most pertinently, though, I found myself in a bit of a rut with writing. I often contemplated an empty canvas with something potentially akin to disdain but more like anxiety borne of unhinged perfectionism. Yet, I’m not writing…
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My Kit for Night Shifts
Night shifts for me have tended to present opportunities to disappear into various creative rabbit holes and contemplate areas to optimise. Maybe it’s inherent in the increased level of stress caused by this upside-down schedule, rendering my mind a minefield of thoughts whizzing around like excitable electrons. Through serial iterations of the optimal kit list…
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We All Have The Same 24 Hours in a Day
“We all have the same 24 hours in a day” is a redundant, morally short-sighted, and frankly, derogatory phrase borne of privilege with no real place in modern society let alone motivational speech. Disclaimer: This is currently a very topical issue due to the very reason that inspired the writing of this article. This article…
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5 Optimisations I Have Made For Nightshifts
This sounds like a bit of a nonsensical statement. Is there any way to optimise night shifts? Are they not just inherently torturous? Well, in some ways, yes. It is pretty much unanimously regarded as one of the most onerous parts of clinical life as a senior house officer (SHO) in any specialty. A disrupted…
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Cultivations: The Aftermath of Part B
TLDR (Too Long, Don’t Read) Part B was tough. It really puts you through your paces and makes you sweat. Unfortunately, there’s no gentler way to put it. It’s a dizzying brain scorcher of an exam that makes you question anything and everything you’ve ever revised and flips it onto its head until you wonder…
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Contemplations: 1 Week Out From Part B
I’m currently sat in my lounge feeling awful. It’s been a really good day of revision, with lots of good scenarios practiced with good people. Yet I have this uneasy feeling which is not-so-good. It’s like an unshakeable sensation hovering just over my head, like a writhing, amorphous, obscuris-like entity composed of all my stress…
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Life Update: Exams, Podcast, Life
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything recently. In a way, one could describe it as a lack of creative juice or volition. Yet it’s more likely due to the busy nature of the recent weeks gone by. Whilst life has been busy, I’ve simultaneously had lots of new and exciting things to work…
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Dear Foundation Training: My Top Tips for Foundation Training
Dear Foundation Training.I hope this finds you well. You were a really tough cookie to contend with. There were times where I thought we were getting along swimmingly, both in harmony. I understood and enjoyed my role, in fact, I accepted my role and diligently performed my duties to the best of my ability. But,…
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Passing the MRCS Part A: How on Earth Did I Do It? My Study Strategy
Wondering how to pass the MRCS Part A exam? Here’s a complete breakdown of my study strategy, resources, and top tips for success. The part A of the Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons examination is one of the toughest out there. With an average pass rate reportedly as low as 40%, it’s no…
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How to Get Motivated for Work
Sometimes it’s difficult to be motivated for work. No matter how much I enjoy my job, there are some days where I’m just too exhausted to feel any impetus to wake up and go into hospital. More recently, I’ve been feeling like this a lot more frequently, having had what feels like a non-stop run…
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A Real Time Walk Through an Orthopaedic Nightshift
I thought I’d create a real-time log of one of my nightshifts, to document the process for anyone who was ever at all curious to see what an orthopaedic night shift can entail. These shifts can be variable, however, usually a Monday night is pandemonium due to people flooding through the A&E doors with battle…
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The Monday After Nights
As usual, my journal entry is situated around a run of night shifts. This is for two reasons really; one is because night shifts/on-calls in general are both eventful and exhausting. The second is because I have a lot of them. So I can’t really remember a remarkable normal working day unless it’s in theatre…
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How to Bulletproof Yourself at Work: Embracing the Environment
Whilst meditating this morning, I heard an inspirational quote from Andy, the creator of Headspace, who narrates the daily meditation. During this philosophical prelude, he explained the power of embracing the now, such that your mind is free of contemplation of the past, or the future. For example, one could be sat on a packed…
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Green Again
I awoke one morning this week, looked out of the window, and saw that the world had suddenly turned green again. It was a sight to behold. After months of overcast days, long nights, bare trees and monotone landscapes, the outdoors had flung open the gates to the oasis we all know and love. An…
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How to Master the Orthopaedic Nightshift
It was the middle of the night on my final weekend of General Surgical night on calls (see my post on surgical on call for more info). So far, it had been busy with several new admissions in quick succession. However, there finally came a point where both the hospital and I breathed a welcome…
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My Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before My CST Interview
Over the past few weeks, emails have been sent out and the next wave of prospective Core Surgical Trainees have been offered the opportunity to interview for a place on the UK Core Surgical Training (CST) programme. Whilst the interview looms from the not-so-distant future, it is important to allow oneself a moment of quiet…
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5am Run
On Sunday night I couldn’t sleep. Having finished weekday nights on Friday morning, my sleep cycle still had not returned to normal. I lay awake from about 0315, comfortably so, ready to go. It was an odd sensation as my partner slept next to me, her steady breathing signalling that she was in deep sleep;…
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Winter Precious
As the weather worsens and the winter is drawn out like an eternal chill through what felt like a never-ending January, I’ve found I have to be really inventive with what I do to feel good. The NHS this year has experienced one of the worst winters as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which…
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Stoicism at Night
There is only so much that you can do. There is only one place in which you can be physically be at any one time. Everybody is on the same big team with the same hopes, fears and insecurities. Smiling at people helps you both feel better. Thanking others also feels good. Make friends with…
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Surgical Nights: Burned Out?
It’s funny. No matter how much time off I’ve taken prior to my on-call shifts, as soon as I’m on the shop floor again, it feels like I’ve never been away. I wonder if you can relate? My recent set of weekday nights were nothing short of crazy throughout. They tended to commence with pandemonium…
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Applying to Core Surgical Training: My Experience
It’s that time of year again where doctors complete their applications on Oriel to embark upon the arduous process to get into surgical training. Applying to surgical training is arguably one of the toughest and most gruelling application processes on the spectra of medical careers. Not only does it require a clear demonstration of dedication…
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What is a Right Hemicolectomy?
Yesterday, I think I came across my favourite General Surgical operation yet. An open right hemicolectomy. I have had the pleasure of scrubbing into a variety of operations so far, however, it was the open right hemicolectomy yesterday that really made me think: “wow this is awesome”. It was just so visual; bowel was spilling…
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Why is Communication Important?
At medical school, we were taught a lot about communication, to the point it almost felt like the course was a communication degree with a medicine module thrown in. We would have (at least) weekly sessions, particularly during the early years or “phase 1” where we learned the basic science and anatomy that underpins modern…
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Gaining Perspective
It’s funny. You’d assume starting a training programme is when you’ve made it, when you feel like you’re getting somewhere. It’s that sign that you’ve achieved what you’ve intended to and are well and truly en route to reaching that consultant post in the specialty of your dreams. Rosy. I think the best way to…
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What is an AP Resection?
What is an AP resection? How is it different from an anterior resection? Why are there so many names? An AP resection stands for an abdominoperineal resection. Let’s break it down: Abdominoperineal resection = abdomino (abdominal) + perineal (of the perineum – the saddle region which extends from the external genitalia to the anus) +…
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Surgical On-Call
So this week I experienced my first set of surgical on-calls of CT1. What better than to theme this week’s blog post on this quake-in-one’s-boots-worthy activity which invokes much chagrin in surgical trainees across the UK and perhaps even globally. To explain.. A Senior House Officer (SHO) (normally either a Foundation Year 2 doctor or…
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What is a Post-Take?
What is the “Post-Take”? What is the “Take”? I started this week on the general surgical post-take so I thought what better than to theme this week’s blog post on this topic. You may have heard the above phrases bandied about either whilst in Medical School or during your training. In summary, it is essentially…
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Day 1
This inaugural blog post is about beginnings. More specifically, it is about two beginnings. The first is the publication of my first ever blog post. The second is of my commencement of surgical training. Starting a new job can be daunting, whether it’s commencing a new rotation in medicine, or embarking upon a new career…
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Vasudev Zaver 