If A Job's Worth Doing

I thought I might reflect a little more on my job allocation.

Already facebook is full of groups, one for each deanery with splinter groups now forming for each individual hospital. This means that not only can I spy on what other people I know are up to but can also see who my colleagues are likely to be come August. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, it means I’ve already pre-formed opinions on some of those I’ll be working with, but the groups are useful for sharing information (something which there is a significant lack of elsewhere).

The allocation process itself was interesting to say the least. I can't decide what to think about the whole thing but I'm surer than ever that it’s more of a lottery than anything else. When the whole process started I was quite apathetic towards the whole thing, I thought it was probably the best of a fairly bad idea. Once I got my score (from application form and academic ranking) I was still rather apathetic, I did muster some feeling when I asked for the individual breakdown of my score (so the score I got for each question on the form - still with me?). There is something quite bizarre about my individual question scores but I shall say no more about that here. I submitted my ranking of all 300 or so jobs, without much expectation. I wasn't particularly bothered about what I ended up with. And so, fast forward to yesterday, it was a very pleasant surprise to find a rotation almost perfectly suited to me. Apparently the rotation I ended up with was about 15th on my list (of a total of 300-odd), which I think is pretty good considering I went for probably the most popular ones.

There is only one problem with my rotation in that it is at different hospitals for F1 and F2. There is a significant geographical distance between them which will probably result in more home changes for us and job changes for missbliss which is not what we wanted. Although that is slightly annoying I’d much rather it is that way round with a good rotation than have a bad rotation at the same hospital. Other than that, my rotation is almost perfect - the only other thing I could have possibly wanted was a gastro placement rather than renal but I’m not complaining in any way, shape or form.

Amazingly I avoided psychiatry - what a result! I also avoided obs and gynae, GP, geriatric medicine, breast surgery and a multitude of other things which I have no interest in what-so-ever.

I'm by far most excited about the F2 year with A+E, Orthopaedics and Paediatrics. (If they change it, I WILL scream, shout, cry, etc, etc. I guess the next job will be to decide what career I want to pursue. Shitters.

It seems that I was lucky in this lottery (makes a bloody change) and I’m really looking forward next year, to a new place, to new people, hell, I’m even almost looking forward to finals in a sadistic sort of way.