Luck of the draw

I came off a train at 6:00 local time in Berlin, frantically refreshing the tiny screen of my phone for an update that would dictate the next 2 years of my life. I was on holiday with my friends celebrating the end of our medical school exams, and slap bang in the middle of the trip were the allocation results from the UKFPO on where we would be working for our foundation programme. It was announced at the last minute, in our final year, that all the points we had earned for the allocation process would be changed to a random, computer-generated algorithm.  

A few of my friends squealed in delight as they got their first choice options, and were off to great cities like Bristol and Manchester. I had to wait longer for mine to load, and ended up seeing it just as I disembarked the busy train. I zoomed in on the small words at the bottom of the screen: “Placeholder”. This meant I hadn’t ranked high enough to be allocated anywhere, and would have to wait for an uncertain amount of time to see where or even whether I would get a job. I immediately burst into tears as my friends tried to comfort me and steer me away from the bustling platform. People shot me sympathetic looks as I couldn’t help bawling all the way up the escalator – not usually my first reaction to arriving on holiday.  

Really, when I think back to that moment, I think I was upset mainly because I was shocked. I had always thought of myself as a strangely lucky person, having won a grand casino prize at age 14 during my first ever game of Blackjack at a family friend’s party. Or beating my grandma every time at Scrabble (must be luck with my letters, she tells me). Perhaps I was a bit naïve, but I wasn’t going for a particularly competitive foundation school, and so I thought my chances of getting a hospital close to home would be pretty good. Over the next few months, I had to wait anxiously whilst my friends were all celebrating their new job rotations. At last, the 30 placeholders in KSS, were told that there would be a spreadsheet of jobs to rank, and again would be allocated using our random computer ranking.  

I pored over this spreadsheet for days, my Dad helping me and researching every hospital I could be sent to in depth. He created a brightly coloured, high tech excel spreadsheet looking at factors such as ‘Commuting distance’, and ‘CQC rating’. Honestly, this really helped me create an order for hospitals and locations I had never even heard of. At this point, I felt powerless over my choice and had a strange sense of calm in whatever the end result was.  

I remember the day vividly that the result came out. I had learnt from my previous mistake and made sure to open the email in a quiet, comforting place. I had teaching in the morning when I saw my phone pinged with the result, but I rejected the urge to open it there and then, despite goading from my classmates.  

At last, I waited what seemed like an eternity and then some, and opened the innocent-looking email in the afternoon at home. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my jittering hands to unlock my phone.  

I couldn’t believe the words when I read that I had been allocated to my top choice. I screamed in delight and called my parents instantly. It felt like getting the best exam results of my life, despite the only contributing factor being a random computer algorithm.  

When the ranks were announced months later, I smiled at the screen that read I was ranked 9,459 out of 10,777. It felt ridiculous that I had managed to land my top choice, despite that terrible ranking.  

I sit here as an FY1, reflecting on my day—having just gone to the lively doctors’ mess for lunch and continued my long table tennis battle with the surgical registrar—and realised that while it can be hard not to worry, you can’t discount your hand until the final card is drawn. 

Annabelle Prosser, F1

Kent, Surrey and Sussex Foundation School