Top tips for doctors in training

This set of 12 top tips will be useful for all doctors in training as well as their more senior colleagues. Every new job poses new challenges and regardless of whether it is your first day or your thousandth day it’s always worth remembering the basics of good care.

Here are some top tips for doctors in training from FMLM member Dr Umesh Prabhu, Medical Director at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust:

1. Put patients at the heart of everything you do. Care.
2. Remember, medicine is a wonderful and noble profession but also a risky profession. Most errors are not due to bad doctors but system failures or human mistakes.
3. Each year in our NHS 20,000 patients die and 55,000 patients suffer for more than six months or become permanently disabled due to medical errors. If you have any concerns about patient safety let someone know immediately.
4. Poor medicine management is the second most common cause of harm to our patients. Please follow proper policy and procedures to make sure you don't make mistakes in medicine management. Ask a pharmacist if you have any doubts.
5. Be methodical in your approach; take a good history, examine thoroughly, keep accurate records, arrange appropriate investigations and take action on results.