"Don"t be a smart arse" – a junior doctor"s survival guide

Ask questions

Patients look to you for reassurance, but your job isn’t to always know the right answer – it’s to find the person in the building who does. The only stupid question is the one you didn’t ask. Ask for help, share problems and try and find solutions for others who come to you for help.

Oliver Long, consultant anaesthetist, London

Don’t be a smart arse

Always seek advice from everyone and anyone including nurses, domestics, porters and your medical peers. Develop a bedside manner for your ward/hospital colleagues as well as with your patients – no-one likes a smart arse, medical degree or no medical degree.

Jude, community hospital nurse, Gloucestershire

Enjoy it – make friends and maybe even find love

It’s the hardest and best two years of your life. The job, and more importantly, your reaction to it, will define the person you will be, the speciality you will choose and the life you will lead. It is also where you will meet many friends that you will keep for life. As a final note, I find anecdotally that many foundation doctors also meet the love of their life in the first two years of training.

Tony, GP, Manchester

Related: What really happens the day junior doctors start work in the NHS

Don’t view patients as a set of signs and symptoms

Take a step back from observations and test results and look at the whole patient. Try not to view them as just a set of signs and symptoms that need to be sorted out but as a complex individual who lives beyond this admission to hospital.

Listen to relatives. Respect your patient’s autonomy even if they are making unwise or unsafe decisions. Listen to your patients more than you talk to them.

Catherine Bowdler, specialist physiotherapist, Cheshire

Eat and drink

Always make time to eat. Keep a water bottle with you. Hungry doctors don’t function as well as fed and watered ones.

Tom Palmer, doctor – emergency medicine, London

Don’t hide

On the senior team, we have seen people come and go and we expect problems, there’s very little that can surprise an NHS consultant. If you share it, it is likely we can solve it.

Find time to wallow in misery

You will be miserable and that’s fine, don’t apologise for it and make sure you schedule time to groan in the mess. On the shop floor, remember who you are and stay cheerful, you will be amazed at how a team of colleagues can carry each other through anything.

Anthony Hopkins, paediatric registrar, south west

Don’t fall out with the nurses

Never ever fall out with the nurses – they are your lifeline, and have an abundance of knowledge (about their patients, the hospital, how to make stuff happen, the location of teabags/mugs/secret chocolate supply etc)

Sarah, specialty doctor, south west

Tidy up after yourself

My advice is clear up after yourself eg blood-taking equipment, notes etc. Leaving stuff around makes you appear that you have little regard for other staff and you will get people’s backs up.

Edward Daniels, staff nurse, drugs and alcohol, Nottingham

Don’t view older patients as old and boring

Some of them are the most amazing people with incredible life stories that deserve to be listened to.

Anonymous, cardiac physiologist, East Midlands

Relax

The first day on your new job is going to be jam-packed. New hospital, new colleagues, new patients, and of course new hospital systems to figure out. These are the first days of the rest of your life in medicine so start off by taking a deep breath.

Christopher Meally, physician associate in cardiology, Warwickshire

Don’t overshare

Don’t talk loudly about how drunk you were on a night out while standing at the nurses’ station (everyone will hear you) – you deserve to let your hair down as much as the next person but your patient needs to see you as a professional, not imagine you staggering along the street.

Emily Graves, consultant haematologist, Sunderland

Make an effort to understand and value all members of the team

Everybody is essential, from the admin staff to the occupational therapists and other lesser known allied health professionals, and sometimes it can be easy to under-appreciate a team member’s contribution.

Hannah Wightman, occupational therapist, East Midlands

Don’t neglect your social life

If you have any time left over from working 48 hours a week, do not neglect your social and personal life. You will need this time to recharge your batteries.

Deborah Tomlinson, retired nurse of 40 years, London

Pass the granny test

Make sure everything you do passes the granny test. If it wouldn’t have been good enough for your granny, it’s not good enough for your patient.

Claire, mental health service manager, north west

If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series which is about memorable moments in a healthcare career, please read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com.

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"Don"t be a smart arse" – a junior doctor"s survival guide