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So long and thanks for all the pish!

Alas, the end is nigh. My time as one of the ‘GPs to be’ trainee GP bloggers has come to an end, as has my VTS training. From 8 August I can call myself a proper GP. I’ll have the MRCGP. The CSA will be a distant memory. I won’t have to do a compulsory exam again. I’ll also be unemployed. But that is because I will be on holiday and not under the supervision of my training practice. The training wheels will be off and I will be freewheeling in GP locum land from mid-September.

Over the last two years, the Pulse blog editors have taken the verbal diarrhoea I have released each month and managed to shape it into amusing and occasionally serious prose, which I feel best represents my voice. My piece de resistance was the ‘Olympic hypocrisy’ blog that was published last summer in the old newspaper version. Yes, I had finally achieved my 15 seconds of fame and as such my blogging has been on a downward trajectory ever since.

My ‘Good luck’ blog pre-CSA provoked a lot of fierce opinions, understandably so from IMGs. There was even a reply from Chair of the RCGP council, Clare Gerada. But rather than be offended by the caustic comments, I have found some of them quite amusing. Of course, just like Twitter, the more fierce the comment, the more likely the individual posts it anonymously, which is a shame - if you truly have an opinion, show us who you are!

Here are a few recent anonymous classics from my ‘Locum for hire’ blog last month: 

‘Another lamb to the slaughter’

‘Right folks the bets are now open. How many years are you going give these chumps? 10, 15 perhaps?…’

So where do I go from here? Well there’s a chance I won’t be away from your screens for long. I plan to blog as a Newly Qualified GP/ First 5 GP, so you have my further adventures in GP land to laugh and groan at. For some of you readers in Bristol, you might be fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to meet me as a locum - please be nice and pay me on time! For my fellow soon-to-be NQGPs out there, if you’re feeling stressed out, depressed and lost in your new job and wonder what life, the universe and everything is all about…

The answer is 42 by the way.

Otherwise. Don’t Panic!

Dr Avradeep Chakrabarti is a GPST3 training in Swindon, living in Bristol.