ABSTRACT
Once in the Foundation years, you will find that clinical work and postgraduate medical education and training can be stressful, but of course it provides necessary opportunities for positive personal and professional development. Doctors in today’s NHS must be rounded — humane, sensitive and expert communicators with patients and colleagues in team settings, as well as up to date with contemporary medicine, competent in a number of clinical interventions, knowledgeable about the structure of the NHS, ethically aware and, importantly, good at looking after themselves. There is little point in pouring vast amounts of resources into a system that educates doctors to a high level of technical proficiency and professionalism, only to find that the very same system creates an unacceptable number of occupational casualties through stress.
