August 2021

July 16, 2020

F3 Resource Hub

Messly’s mission is to support doctors as you seek out a happy and rewarding medical career.

Young trainees are increasingly stepping off the treadmill of training to try more flexible and rewarding careers. That's most obvious with F2s, where over 70% of you will take an F3 year into 2021.

You told us that stepping away from the certainty and structure of training and ‘going it alone’ feels like jumping into an abyss. The breadth of options is confusing, there are no support structures and you’ll need to figure out so many things for the first time... like your finances, compliance and appraisals.

We have created detailed guides to support you through your F3 year, from initial planning through to the specifics of finding work and managing your year. In this article, we've collected all of these resources into one place.

👉 Start Here

‍❓ To F3 or not to F3: If you’re not sure if an F3 year is right for you, this sets out the reasons to take one and the questions to ask yourself before you commit.

💡 Your F3 Options Explained: A comprehensive guide to the options for your F3 year to help you make the important decisions, from well-trodden paths like locuming and fellowships to more unusual ones like adventure medicine or moving abroad.

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👉 Inspiration

🎤 F3 Stories Podcast Pilot Episode: Listen to our in-depth discussion with Dr Katy Stevenson. Katy is passionate about medical education and widening access to medicine and has built her F3 year around that passion, securing roles as a Lecturer in Physician Associate Studies, and Clinical Small Group Facilitator, at the University of Plymouth. She shares insights such as how she went about planning her year, how she secured the roles she really wanted, tips for getting into medical education, and inspiration to make your own F3 year an unforgettable one.

🎤 F3 Stories Podcast, Episode Two: In the second episode of our podcast series, we speak to Dr Amelia Webber, who was a Foundation Trainee in South Yorkshire, then went on to enjoy a successful year of locuming as an F3 in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the North West. On the podcast, Amelia shares her experiences of planning her F3 year, finding locum work, dealing with agencies, and her tips for how to make sure an F3 year built around locum work is rewarding and fulfilling.

💬 F3 Stories Interview: Locuming vs Clinical Fellowship: In this F3 Stories interview, we talk to Gursevak Singh, a current ST3 in Intensive Care Medicine in the North West. He spent his F3 year locuming after Foundation training, then went on to do a clinical fellow job for a year, before starting Core Medical Training.

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👉 Locums

📆 Planning Your F3 Year: A Timeline: A detailed guide through all the key steps you should be taking during your F2 year to ensure you can have your dream F3 year when the time comes.

📄 How To Write The Perfect CV For Your F3 Year: Everything you need to get your CV up to scratch as you begin to look for locum work, to ensure you have the best possible chance of securing the jobs you really want during your F3 year.

❓ Clinical Fellow vs Locum: Which Should I Choose?: We weigh up the various pros and cons of clinical fellow and locum roles for doctors taking an F3 year, and the main considerations you’ll need to make before choosing which path to take yourself.

✨ Your Locum FAQs Answered: We've collated and answered the most common questions which crop up for doctors looking into locuming, and current locums who are looking for support, with additional advice about where to go to get more information!

💲 Locum Pay: What Can I Expect?: A guide to help you know what to expect to be paid as a locum, including a general overview of the UK pay rates, as well as an explanation of the pan-London rates.

⬆️ Career Progression as a Locum: A set of useful tips and advice to ensure your time working as a locum doctor in short-term positions is still contributing to your long-term career, and to help you continue to make progress that you can demonstrate to future employers.

⭐️ Finding Work as an F3 Locum: Bank and Agency: A breakdown of how each works and the pros and cons of each, covering registration, pay and access to shifts.

📱 The New Way to Find Locum Work: An introduction to Messly's new service, which allows you to find the locum work you need quickly and easily on your own terms.

🚶♀ A Step-by-Step Guide to Locuming Through an Agency: This is a helpful step-by-step guide to working with a locum agency, to help you ensure a seamless and positive experience in getting the types of shifts you're looking for.

🗃️ Finding the Right Locum Agencies for You: In this article, we provide tips for how to figure out which locum agencies are the right ones for you to approach based on your own specific interests and needs.

📞 How Registration Calls with Locum Agencies Work: Registration calls with locum agencies can be a bit daunting the first time around, but it's an important conversation to get right. In this article we discuss how to make the most of this call and give you some top tips to ensure you're well prepared.

🙂 What Makes a Good Recruitment Agent: Here we provide detailed guidance about how to judge whether you think a recruiter is a good match for you, and what makes a good recruiter overall.

🤝 How Hospitals and Locum Agencies Work Together: This article explains how hospitals and locum agencies work together to fill their vacant shifts, helping doctors to be fully informed when choosing which agencies to register with themselves.

💯 How to Get the Most From Your Locum Agency: Once you're registered and fully compliant an agency, you'll then begin working with them to find shifts. This article explains how that process works and provides some useful tips for getting the most out of your relationship with your locum agency.‍

✅ Compliance for F3 Locums: A complete guide to which documents most agencies and banks require from you, and tips to make the registration process as quick and easy as possible.

❔ Answering the Key Compliance Questions for Locum Doctors: A list of answers to the most common and frequently asked questions when it comes to approaching compliance as a locum doctor.

🧐 Arranging Your F3 Year Indemnity Insurance: This article will explain why you need medical indemnity insurance for your F3 year, when to start organising it, and how to make sure you have the appropriate cover!

💰 How to Make a Living as a Full-Time Locum: Exploring how much you might expect to earn from locum work as an F3, highlighting key financial and work-related considerations you should be making, and providing advice to help manage your finances.

💵 Managing Your Finances as an F3 Locum: An overview of the key issues to consider an as F3 locum, including tax codes, your NHS pension, and getting tax rebates, with specialist advice from our friends at Medics' Money.

💼 Should You Locum Through a Limited Company?: Here we explain what it means to locum through a limited company, discuss the pros and cons of doing so, and answer the key questions you’ll need to be thinking about when deciding if it's the right approach for you to take.

1️⃣ Tips for Your First Day as a Locum in a New Hospital: Tips to help you prepare for, and successfully navigate, your first day at a new hospital when working as a locum. This will also hopefully give you the opportunity of being invited back for more shifts in the near future.

🔎 Understanding Your Rights as a Locum Doctor: Here we explain what you’re entitled to and help you understand your employee rights as a locum doctor, with regards to things like annual leave entitlement and other employment issues.

🌟 Tips for Settling into a Long-Term Locum Position: This article will help you get settled into a long-term locum position, provide advice for making a positive impact when joining a new team or working in an unfamiliar hospital, discuss how to make the most of your time there, and what to do if any issues arise.

👍 Portfolios and Appraisals for F3 Locums: A guide for keeping a portfolio throughout your year of locum work, and explaining how to prepare for your annual appraisal towards the end of your F3 year.

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👉 Specialty-Specific Locum Guides

We've also written a detailed guide for each of the main specialties, giving you tips on how to settle into each of those departments. These will be especially useful if you haven’t rotated through that specialty in your Foundation Training rotations before.

📖 Tips for Locuming in a New Specialty – Obstetrics and Gynaecology

📖 Tips for Locuming in a New Specialty – General Medicine

📖 Tips for Locuming in a New Specialty – Paediatrics

📖 Tips for Locuming in a New Specialty – General Surgery

📖 Tips for Locuming in a New Specialty – Trauma & Orthopaedics

📖 Tips for Locuming in a New Specialty – Emergency Medicine

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👉 Australia and New Zealand

🇳🇿 Your F3 Year in New Zealand: A set of articles providing insights into what life might be like while working as a doctor in Australia and New Zealand, to help you understand all your options and make the best choice for where to experience your F3 year.

✅ How to Get Your Licence to Practice Medicine in New Zealand: A detailed guide walking you through the process for UK-based doctors to secure a licence to practice medicine in New Zealand with the MCNZ.

💬 Interview with Dr Fionnghaile Nixon: An in-depth interview with a doctor originally from Ireland, with medical experience all over the world, who has now settled into New Zealand's Emergency Medicine training programme.

💬 Interview with Dr Ed Matthews: An interview with Dr Ed Matthews, who talked to us about his move to New Zealand for his own F3 year, how he adjusted to life over there when he arrived, and more.

💬 Interview with Dr David Hughes: An interview with the Deputy CMO of Counties Manukau Health, who first moved to New Zealand in 1993, discussing how working as a doctor there can differ from the UK.

💬 My Life as an ICU Trainee in Australia: An interview with an ICU doctor who moved from the UK to Australia, providing insights into the interview process, tips for settling into life overseas, and how the training systems and the culture differ down under.

💬 My Life as an ED Consultant in Australia: An interview with a doctor who has moved to Australia, sharing his motivations for leaving the UK, advice for finding a job abroad, how the healthcare system differs from the NHS, and more.

💬 Working in Urgent Care in Auckland: Dr Liam Atkins gives insight into the positive experience he’s had living and working in New Zealand so far, discusses how his job there differs from working for the NHS, and shares why he’s planning on staying out there for the foreseeable future.

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