Further Confessions of a GP

Dear Ben, or should I say Dr Daniels,

It’s your first day as a doctor and don’t you feel grown up standing in front of the mirror in your new shirt and shiny shoes. You’ll be double-taking for weeks when people call you Doctor and so you should, because you look about 14 and know absolutely nothing.

Your seniors will give you a really hard time for those first few months. Sometimes for no good reason, but mostly because you keep losing stuff and forgetting to do things. You actually got quite good at passing exams and so it will be a bit of a shock when you realise that you’re really not that great at being a junior doctor. It will get better and you’ll get better. I promise.

Anyway, here are some pieces of advice I would like to give you for the next 10 years that might make life a little easier:

1. For a start get a bloody haircut, Ben, and shave off those ridiculous sideburns! No, you don’t look like Liam Gallagher. In fact, if anything, you look considerably more glam rock than Brit pop.

2. There will be times, particularly in those first few years, when you’ll lose your way a bit. Often your job will be overwhelming and you won’t feel able to cope with the uncontrollable number of demands being placed upon you. There will be many times that you genuinely don’t believe that you have time to even eat or pee. Take a step back and remember why you chose medicine. You are never too busy to spend an extra five minutes with a patient reassuring them or explaining something. You’ll learn that sometimes making someone a cup of tea and holding their hand is of much more therapeutic value than yet another blood test or chest X-ray.

3. After your first week at work you’ll need to let off some steam. Nothing wrong with that. Have a few drinks by all means and I won’t even judge you for going to that awful nightclub after the pub shuts. Just one thing though – for the love of Jesus don’t try to drunkenly persuade some girl to come home with you by telling her you’re a doctor and you save loads of lives. She’ll say no, but far worse, you’ll later discover that she is in fact your consultant’s daughter. He’ll see the funny side but you’ll never live it down. Never.

4. Just a few days from now you’ll witness a care assistant being horrible to an elderly man with dementia. She will castigate him as if he was a naughty child because in his confusion he put salt and pepper onto his pudding. You decide to say nothing as you don’t want anyone thinking you’re a troublemaker. That decision not to speak up will remain one of your biggest single regrets in medicine. In 10 years’ time you’ll still be able to see the hurt expression in that old man’s face just as clearly as the day it happened. Shame on you.

5. A few years from now you’ll be in a coroner’s court. It will be one of the worst experiences of your life and you’ll be forced to question everything you thought you believed to be right. You’ll question whether medicine is for you and if all the hard work was worth it. It is worth it and you’ll get through it. The experience will make you a better doctor and, no, it wasn’t your fault.

6. Let’s face it, being a West Ham fan hasn’t been great thus far. I imagine you’ll be hoping I can give you a few tales of success and glory to look forward to over the next 10 years. I can’t, but deep down I think you probably knew that. In 2006 West Ham will get to the FA Cup final, but to your dismay you’ll be on call that weekend. You’ll beg, lie and cheat to get that weekend off. You’ll end up having to swap it for a week of night shifts and miss a close friend’s birthday party as a result. The cost of the ticket you bought off a tout will be more than the value of your car (no, you don’t have a nice car by 2006). After 89 minutes it looked like it was actually going to be worth all the effort and money… It wasn’t. You’d have been better off going to work.

7. All the heartbreak of supporting West Ham for the next 10 years will pale into insignificance in comparison with supporting England. It will be a further decade of unrelenting disappointment and underachievement and no we don’t get any better at taking penalties. If you can completely ignore the next decade of World Cups and European championships your life will be simpler and less painful. Don’t get too down though; we do beat the Aussies at both rugby and cricket. Yes, I know they’re posh boy sports and you don’t really understand the rules, but just enjoy the winning part.

8. You’ll probably want to know whether you’re going to save any lives because at this stage in your career you foolishly believe that’s what it’s all about. You become a good doctor but not because you save lots of lives. Ninety-nine per cent of the time your patients will get better or get worse regardless of what you do. The sooner you learn this, the better a doctor you’ll become. But yes, you will save the odd life, most memorably up a mountain in Peru in the middle of the night. It sounds exciting but you absolutely shat yourself at the time you big Jessie.

9. Never be too proud to ask for help. It’s hard admitting your own shortcomings but your colleagues and, most importantly, your patients will appreciate your honesty. Be humble, smile and listen, and you won’t believe how much you’ll learn during those first few months. Ten years from now there will still be plenty of things you don’t know and need help with, so the sooner you learn that you don’t know everything the better.

10. Oh, and one last thing, Ben – these first few years as a doctor really will expose you to the full spectrum of human emotions. There will be moments of joy, great sadness, elation and frustration. Hidden among them, there will be also occasional nuggets of absolute comedic gold. If some funny shit happens write it down. Believe it or not, in 10 years from now you’ll be struggling for material for that tricky second book and those Amazon reviewers can be a harsh lot.