CONFESSIONS OF A JUNIOR DOCTOR: Life Behind the Scrubs in an NHS Hospital

Hollis Parr Enderby grew up in a small town where the biggest medical emergency was usually a stubbed toe or a slice from a rusty garden tool. She never planned to become a doctor. She wanted to be a musician, then a journalist, then a chef, then a gardener, and for one very confused summer, a professional dog walker. None of those plans worked out, mostly because she was better at science than she was at walking dogs that pulled on the lead. She studied medicine at a university in a city with terrible traffic and excellent coffee, and she has never quite recovered from either.

Her first year as a junior doctor was a disaster. She forgot patient names, lost drug charts, prescribed the wrong antibiotics twice, and once walked into a glass door while carrying a stack of notes. The glass door survived. Her dignity did not. But she kept showing up. She kept asking questions. She kept learning. Over time, the disasters became smaller and less frequent. She learned where the sluice room was. She learned how to talk to grieving families without crying until after they left. She learned that the printer would never work and that the best response was to laugh, not scream. The screaming came later, in the car, on the drive home. That was allowed.

She has worked in emergency medicine, general medicine, surgery, and geriatrics. Her favourite rotation was geriatrics, because elderly patients tell the best stories and do not complain when you take ten minutes to find a vein. Her least favourite rotation was surgery, not because she disliked the surgeons, but because she fainted during an operation and woke up to a scrub nurse telling her to drink more water and eat more salt. She still does not like watching blood leave the body. She has made peace with that.

When she is not in the hospital, Hollis reads crime novels that are too scary for her own good, bakes bread that never rises properly, and sends long voice messages to her friends that no one ever finishes listening to. She lives in a flat with a broken shower and a very forgiving landlord. She has one plant that has somehow survived for three years despite being watered approximately once a month. She considers this her greatest achievement.

She wrote this book because she was tired of people asking her what it was really like to be a junior doctor and then looking uncomfortable when she told them. The truth is not comfortable. The truth is long hours and low pay and paperwork and grief and joy and exhaustion and a strange, stubborn love for a job that does not always love you back. She wrote it in the small hours of the morning, after night shifts, before sleep, using a laptop that crashes when too many tabs are open. The laptop crashed seventeen times during the writing of this book. She took that as a sign that the book needed to exist.

Hollis still works as a doctor. She is not sure how long she will stay. She thinks about leaving sometimes, on the bad days, the days when nothing goes right and everyone is angry and the coffee machine is broken. But then a good day comes. A patient says thank you. A nurse brings her tea. A registrar tells her she did a good job. And she remembers why she started. She stays for one more day. Then another. Then another. That is probably how it will always be. One day at a time. One patient at a time. One small moment of kindness at a time.

If you see her in the hospital, she will be the one in the slightly wrinkled scrubs, drinking tea that has gone cold, walking a little too fast, and smiling even when she is tired. The smile is not fake. It is just tired. There is a difference. Say hello if you want. She would like that. She does not get enough hellos.