Work Life Balance in UK

Do you able to get work balance in UK?

My answer: Yes. 

You should be back on time as per your work schedule. 

My consultant in A&E told me before, in the last hours of your work shift. Do not clerk new patients, start to organize and prepare to go back. Sometimes, we are allowed to go back 30mins before our shift after we had handover. As my consultant understands that you should not exceed work time and that 30minutes you can't clerk new patients. Yet, it is depends on who you are working with. 

Tips: Know your bosses' expectations and ways.

Apart from work, work-life balance (your time) depends on how much you are eager to do and how much time you are giving yourself (the deadline). 

In UK, if you want to become a trainee, you need do-the-service (clinic service/ ward work), learning, and portfolio building Besides, you can explore lots of other opportunities (e.g. academic or non-academic).

In you are staying in UK (especially London), you can get anything. You can have new hobbies and new adventures.  My friend says, " You name it and you can just get it". 

Talking about career and work-life balance, there are few topic that anyone be aware of: 

Portfolio building

- There are several components of the portfolio.

- This link give an overview: https://helenngjourney.blogspot.com/2022/02/uk-nhs-portfolio.html

Tips: 

 If you want to do cardio training in UK, what component I need to build up in my portfolio? 

You can just use google = HEE + Cardio + or Portfolio. There you can have a good idea of it.

Exception report 

- You are eligible to make an exception report if you go back late for your work. You could get compensation for it.

To know more: https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/working-hours/work-schedule/exception-reporting-for-junior-doctors

Junior doctor contract

- Always refer to your contract and you are scheduled to work only at a contract number of hours.

To know more: https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/contracts

Break

- As a junior doctor, you are eligible to take a break accordingly to the number of scheduled hours that you work. Do take the break. 

To know more: https://helenngjourney.blogspot.com/2022/03/how-many-break-i-can-take.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My reflection on "Work-Life Balance in the UK"

However, the reality is we could face situations in which we need to sacrifice our personal time. Of cos, you can choose no using it. 

Situations:

I worked the night shift over the weekend and today is Monday (my replacement for the off day). I attended the Clinical supervisor meeting on my off day.

My friend ( CT4 medical trainee) told me about avoiding using personal time ( day off) for meeting up supervisor. I am well aware of I can refuse to do it or change the date since it is my day off. I have to admit that often I am a task-orientated or workaholic person. I understand that my CS could go on leave soon and it is entering the third week of my trainee. So, I prefer to sacrifice my personal time for learning. I viewed it as a gain as I feel learning is a joyful process. When I am able to learn in the workplace, I felt it is nevermind to spend more time in my workplace.

Reflection:

I should keep the spirit of "never stop learning" in life.

I should avoiding doing it by taking my day off for work need/ career needs, as I could end out burnout or spend too little time on other elements in life (e.g. family, loved one, hobbies, mental and physical health). 

In conclusion:

Have a work-life balance while maintaining learning performance needs

I hope this article in my blog is a good sharing for you. 

Here is the table of contents for other topics: https://helenngjourney.blogspot.com/2022/02/table-of-contents.html