A Day in the Life of a Junior Doctor

The roles and responsibilities borne by junior doctors have evolved with our shifting demographics, rising medical standards and health literacy, and advancements in healthcare technology. This story seeks to highlight the challenges and "everyday frustrations" that our junior doctors face in today's workplace, and to put forth the key issues that remain a work in progress and need to be addressed.

The SMA Doctors-in-Training (DIT) Committee strongly believes that:

1. Healthcare workforce planning should be needs-based and provident, yet nimble. Planning principles and considerations should be consistently applied across all levels.
2. All healthcare staff require sufficient rest and reasonable working conditions, to mitigate the risk of human error resulting in patient safety issues and adverse events.
3. Healthcare worker abuse can take subtle forms. We must adopt a zero-tolerance approach: make reporting easy, stand up against errant individuals, and protect our frontline staff.
4. Junior doctors now face the task of steering increasingly complex communications with patients and their families. We must recognise this and commit resources to prepare our junior doctors for their roles as advocates, educators and stewards of the public healthcare system.

5. To enable junior doctors to focus on their core clinical roles, it is critical to have timely and responsive HR and information technology support, and to offload non-clinical processes (such as work-hour tracking, work-related claims, roster planning and leave applications) through automation and right-siting.

About us

The SMA DIT Committee advocates for junior doctors and medical students, and runs a wide range of initiatives to support them in becoming competent, confident and compassionate healthcare professionals. The Committee has spoken up and provided recommendations on working hour caps, night call allowances and the float system, leave for National Service call-ups, postgraduate training opportunities, and junior doctor engagement. In addition to these advocacy efforts, the Committee runs a Junior Doctor Helpline, operates a junior doctor handbook mobile app, conducts workshops for junior doctors and co-organises the SMA National Medical Students' Convention.

Join our DIT Telegram channel @helpourjuniordocs and follow our Instagram page @jrdocs.sg to stay up to date regarding our various initiatives. If you are keen to get involved with SMA DIT efforts, please write in to ilj@sma.org.sg.