Internship Reviews

Rural Allowance: No

Doctors Quarters:

• 2 bedroom flat off hospital property. Sharing is dependent on numbers.
• DQ is split into on campus (which is apparently terrible) and then off campus about 15min drive they rent apartments for the interns (apparently very nice), usually the apartment is two bedroom sharing
• I didn’t use DQ so I don’t know anything about them.
• There are far less accommodation allocations than interns so many do not get a DQ. Some get on site DQ which is spacious with a kitchen, lounge, bedroom and bathroom in the unit, allocated to one intern, but maintenence often takes a very long time to get done and must be reported multiple times. There is an off site DQ that is sub let by DoH in a complex. There, interns have their own rooms but 2 interns share the common areas ie lounge kitchen etc. Maintenance is an issue because the hospital says it is the owner who is being sub let from who is responsible, who often don’t attend to the maintenence concerns. Those who don’t get placed into the two above dqs are placed into student accommodation with a common bathroom and kitchen for everyone, badly maintained and the hospital says because it is student accommodation, it should be maintained by the university affiliated to it.

Academics:

• Differs per rotation
• Obs&gyn:
  Academic: intern presentations and a really good esmoe trainer.
  Surgery: Academic: no
  Peads: Academic: around 5 “tuts” throughout the block
  Medicine: Academic: intern presentations
  Orthos: Academic: intern presentations
  Psych: Academic: presentations again
  Anasthesia: Academic: the consultant does academic lectures every 2-3 weeks.
  Fam med: Academics: intern presentations.
• Nothing in surgery, teaching during PIWR in medicine along with the odd intern presentation, paeds nothing, O&G very little teaching.
• Academics in anesthesia, psychiatry, and paeds departments is wonderful, with protocols, supervision at all times, and dedicated teaching.
  Internal medicine has some teaching on a weekly basis, consultant ward rounds daily.
  Surgery has consultant ward rounds daily and registrar support in some wards.
  Obstetrics and gynae have daily meetings with teaching on topics seen on the previous night and some practical esmoe training weekly.
  Orthopedics has minimal formal academics.
  Family medicine has weekly presentations but not much else academic.

Supervision:

• Differs per rotation.
• Obs&gyn: Seniors: Excellent support and kind. Willing to teach.
  Surgery: Seniors: mostly good and we have 3 registrars rotating through
  Peads Seniors: amazing, wonderful people
  Medicine: Seniors: some really good ones but mostly they aren’t great
  Orthos: Seniors: Most are decent and will come help in casualty
  Psych: Seniors: psych seniors are great as are the ED Drs.
  Anasthesia Seniors: Wonderful MOs that are willing to teach. Very strict consultant.
  Fam med Seniors: nice mostly chill
  Intern coordinators are OK if not spectacular
• You’ll never be left to drown but they do make your life unnecessarily difficult at times. In some departments anyone above intern level apparently can refuse to do covid swabs, they also often leave early instead of helping out (perhaps that’s the norm though lol).
• Excellent in paeds, anesthesia and psychiatry. One consultant each and No regs.
  Internal medicine, it depends, sometimes supervised, other times not. No registrars. Consultants rotate but there are always 3 at a given time.
  Surgery, being unsupervised for hours in casualty is common. 2 registrars rotate at the hospital.
  Obs and gynae, also a mix, seniors very understaffed so struggle to supervise and cover own duties at the same time. No registrars. 4 consultants.
  ED usually supervised. One consultant who does teaching rounds daily except Tuesdays.
  Ortho, supervision at times, deep end at times. No regs. 2 consultants.

Clinical Exposure:

• Generally good expose in all fields
• Obsgyn: Cutting time: yes, Loads of MVAs
  Surgery: Cutting time: no. Seniors cut and comserves if they are really eager and push for it. Lots and lots of stitching in casualty though.
  Peads: Calls: you are in casualty alone Mo’s only come down if there’s a problem but you are never ever left with something you can’t handle. You gain confidence in a safe environment
  Medicine: worst rotation at Leratong Calls: Ridiculously bad especially during covid. No sleep. 8-9 wards calling you all the time. Very little actual exposure just grunt work.
  Orthos: Cutting time: Generally no but then you’re not expected to be able to perform those procedures. Loads of experience with dislocations, fractures, chronic conditions.
  Psych: Wide array of conditions
  Anasthesia: You will not run a theatre alone at Leratong ever, and no that’s not a good thing
  Fam med: This is where you put everything into practice so yes loads
• Exposure to pretty much everything in the logbook.
• It’s not tertiary so advanced cases referred out. A lot of variety in terms of cold cases to more serious cases. Busy because serves large area, so patient numbers are significant.

Social Scene:

• Hospital has no social scene but the west Rand itself is packed with fun things to do and cheaper than the city.
• Depends on your intern group etc. I had no social scene with the people at work at all.
• Politics 3+ in some departments, wonderful working environment in others.

Additional Comments:

• Internship is what YOU make of it.
  *Further details:
  Obs&gyn:
  Calls: generally no sleep. 4-5 MVAs a night.
  Post call: usually at 9-10am
  Seniors: Excellent support and kind. Willing to teach.
  Academic: intern presentations and a really good esmoe trainer.
  Cutting time: yes as it’s part of your training.
  Surgery:
  Calls: sleep varies wildly depending on how much people drink that night 
  Post call:9-10am
  Seniors: mostly good and we have 3 registrars rotating through
  Academic: no
  Cutting time: no. Seniors cut and comserves if they are really eager and push for it. Lots and lots of stitching in casualty though.
  Peads:
  Calls: can be busy but usually only until like 12pm. Varies
  Post call: around 9 after you’ve seen your patients and done the piwr.
  Seniors: amazing, wonderful people.
  Academic: around 5 “tuts” throughout the block
  Medicine:
  Worst rotation at Leratong.
  Calls: Ridiculously bad especially during covid. No sleep. 8-9 wards calling you all the time
  Post call: 12
  Seniors: some really good ones (Dr njiva got me through that rotation) but mostly they aren’t great
  Academic: intern presentations
  Orthos:
  Calls: Hectic but sometimes you can get 3-4 hours of sleep
  Post call: leave at 9 after xray meeting
  Academic: intern presentations
  Cutting time: Generally no but then you’re not expected to be able to perform those procedures. Loads of experience with dislocations, fractures, chronic conditions.
  Psych:
  Calls: you call in the ED. Generally if there’s enough Dr’s on 4 hours to rest and 1 hour for dinner separately
  Post call: 30min walk through with the consultant then home at 8:30.
  Seniors: psych seniors are great as are the ED Drs.
  Academic: presentations again
  Very chill
  Anasthesia:
  Calls: can be a lot of sleep or none depending on the night.
  Post call: at 8am.
  Seniors: Wonderful MOs that are willing to teach. Very strict consultant
  Academic: the consultant does academic lectures every 2-3 weeks.
  Intern coordinators are OK if not spectacular
  All in all its what you make it here and they cap your calls at 80 hours which is nice as a lot of places don’t

• Not a terrible place to do internship but it will test your patience lol teamwork makes the dream work- remember that.

• Staff change so often it may be a completely different experience from one year to the next.