Innovation Project: Doctorate

Hospital doctors examine, diagnose and treat patients who have been referred to the hospital by GPs and other health professionals. They apply medical knowledge and skills to the diagnosis, prevention and management of disease.

Hospital doctors work in wards and outpatient clinics, predominantly in the public sector (National Health Service (NHS) ), but also in the private sector.

As well as treating patients, they refer them to a wide range of other healthcare professionals including nurses, radiographers, pharmacists and physiotherapists. Hospital doctors work within a number of specialties, of which the most common are:

anaesthetics;
emergency medicine;
general medicine;
general surgery;
obstetrics and gynaecology;
paediatrics;
psychiatry;
trauma and orthopaedics.

Typical work activities

Specific tasks depend on the specialty - a surgeon's daily tasks are significantly different from those of a doctor working in accident and emergency (A&E) or a general physician. However, the following responsibilities are likely to be carried out on a daily or weekly basis, regardless of the doctor's specialty:

monitoring and providing general care to patients on hospital wards and in outpatient clinics;
admitting patients requiring special care followed by investigations and treatment;
examining and talking to patients to diagnose their medical conditions;
carrying out specific procedures, e.g. performing operations and specialist investigations;
making notes and preparing paperwork, both as a legal record of treatment and for the benefit of other healthcare professionals;
working with other doctors as part of a team, either in the same department or within other specialties;
liaising with other medical and non-medical staff in the hospital to ensure quality treatment;
promoting health education;
undertaking managerial responsibilities such as planning the workload and staffing of the department, especially at more senior levels;
teaching junior doctors and medical students, as well as auditing and research.

Qualification and training required

Qualification as a doctor is a lengthy process consisting of several related stages.

The first stage is undergraduate medical education at a medical school attached to a university. Applications to most medical schools are made through UCAS and should be submitted in the autumn of the year before the course starts. The standard length of this stage is five years. However, graduates may be able to take an accelerated four-year course, which requires at least a 2.1 degree, preferably in a scientific subject. A graduate who doesn't match these criteria could take an 'Access to Medicine' course.

The next stage is the two-year Foundation Programme, entered via a national application process that is largely online.

The final stage is core speciality or run-through training, when doctors specialise in areas such as paediatrics, emergency medicine or neurosurgery. This takes five to seven years depending on the speciality and doctors are awarded a certificate of completion training when they have satisfied the assessment requirements.