Welcome to working in the United Kingdom. You have made a great choice to come to the UK, where you will meet with and work with people from around the world. Medical practice varies in different countries and below is some information you may find useful.
SAS Doctors comprise a mix of junior (supervised) and senior doctors and include Trust Doctors, Associate Specialists, Locally Employed Doctors (LED), Specialty Doctors and NCHD, Ireland and Associate Specialists who are not on a specialty training scheme in the UK.
In order to make your professional journey smooth, we have compiled some first steps for you to consider. The below organisations can be contacted through their website links.
General Medical Council
Having registered with the Medical Council, it is useful to register on their website to view your certificates, payment details and most importantly to look up the Good Medical Practice guidelines, which will help you navigate your day-to-day clinical work. In particular please familiarise yourself with the guidance on Consent in adults and children and the Mental Capacity Act. There are some differences in the clinical and legal aspects of medical practice in the four UK nations.
Membership of a Defence Union will be helpful in negotiating your career path and for medico-legal advice. You have several options including MDS, MDU, MDDUS.
Membership of the BMA and other similar organisations eg. BAPIO will help you keep in touch with current medical practice, help with interviews and support you with employment-related matters.
Early engagement with the respective Royal Colleges and your specialty specific association, will help you identify the career pathways open to doctors in the UK, information on Fellowships, courses and on mentorship programmes. The JCST website will give you more information on the specialty-specific Examinations and the Curriculum to cover.
You should familiarise yourself with Reflective writing and keep logbooks of your progress. For surgeons, we recommend registering with www.eLogbook.org. Workplace Based Assessments can be recorded by registering with ISCP.
Lastly, we encourage you to join the local SAS group in your hospital (via Trust emails) and engage with the SAS Tutors in the regional Deanery to support you with booking relevant training courses to attend and to meet other SAS doctors.
If you find you want to take a step back to make sense of the systems in place, you could consider attending a Deanery Introductory course that will provide helpful orientation to working in the UK.