Life and loathes of a new doctor: Team colours

During my recent stint as a receiving preregistration house officer in surgery I spent several hours running around the accident and emergency department each day meeting the patients sent up by their general practitioners. “Acute complaints” ranged from the sublime--boils on bottom--to the ridiculous--three year history of constipation. While in the emergency department you work with colleagues from every specialty in the medical world, from rookie house officer to senior consultant. I found that as there is no instant way of identifying which specialty you are from I was regularly asked, “Are you the medic, orthopod, porter, hospital chaplain?” Funnily enough I was never asked to give my psychiatric opinion on a patient, but I think that's because psychiatrists are easily identifiable in their cardigans.

The other common problem in the melee that is accident and emergency was to be mistaken for a senior house officer or even specialist registrar.