F3 Resource Hub
Messly’s mission is to support doctors as they seek out a happy and rewarding medical career.
Each year, more and more young trainees are stepping off the treadmill of training to try more flexible and fulfilling career paths. That's most obvious with F2s, where over 70% of you will take an F3 year into 2022.
Even so, you told us that leaving the stability and structure of training to 'go it alone' can feel like jumping into an abyss. The breadth of options is confusing, there's less support available, and you’ll need to figure out so many things for the first time... like your finances, compliance, and appraisals.
To ease this daunting challenge of approaching an F3 year, we've created detailed guides to support you with everything from your initial planning to the specifics of finding work. In this article, we've collected all of those resources into one place.
And if you're planning on locuming full-time, be sure to check out our Locum Doctor Hub for a helpful selection of locum-specific resources as well.
👉 Our Most Popular Articles
📆 Planning Your F3 Year: A Timeline
👉 Should You Take an F3 Year?
❓ To F3 or not to F3: If you’re unsure an F3 year is right for you, this sets out the reasons to take one and the questions to ask yourself before you commit.
👉 Planning Your F3 Year
📆 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 Medical CV for Your F3 Year: Everything you need to get your CV up to scratch as you begin to look for work, to ensure you have the best possible chance of securing the jobs you really want during your F3 year.
📑 How to Write the Perfect Medical CV for Finding Locum Work: Following from "How to Write the Perfect Medical CV", this article will explain how to tailor your CV for the purpose of finding locum work in a specific specialty to help show prospective employers that you are perfect for the role.
👉 Understanding Your F3 Options
💡 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.
❓ Clinical Fellow vs Locum: Which Should I Choose?: A comparison of 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 for yourself.
👉 Guides for Being a Locum Doctor
If you decide to locum during your F3 year, these useful guides will help you get started. You can also visit our Locum Doctor Hub to find an extensive list of resources and articles covering everything from managing your finances to finding the best agencies, and locum-specific career advice. Access this for free here.
✨ 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 find more information.
❌ The 23 Biggest Myths For New Locum Doctors: There's a lot of false information about locuming out there. In this article we list the most common misconceptions that we hear, along with their corrections for you read in your own time.
📱 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.
💭 Is Locuming Right For You?: Not sure whether you want to work as a locum doctor? No problem. This article will take you through some of the key thoughts you'll need to consider when deciding if it's right for you.
🚶 Getting Started As A Locum Doctor: We understand that getting started as a Locum Doctor can feel daunting. That's why we wrote this guide to give you a summary on the key points to help get you started.
🚶 A Step-by-Step Guide to Locuming Through an Agency: A helpful step-by-step guide to working with a locum agency, to help you have a positive and successful experience in getting the types of shifts you're looking for.
🙂 What Makes a Good Recruitment Agent: Detailed guidance to help you judge whether a recruiter is a good match for you, and how to know what makes a good recruiter overall.
💡 Tips to Increase Your Locum Pay: Our top tips to help you earn the best rates possible for your grade, specialty, and region when working as a locum doctor.
🛠 The Locum Toolkit: This is your free one-stop-shop for all the apps, services and resources to help make your life as a Locum Doctor a lot easier.
📅 Your Timeline For Finding Locum Work: Learn how to research and prepare your documents well ahead of time to ensure you get the perfect locum job for you.
❌ The Biggest Mistakes I Made In My First Month As A New Locum Doctor: Join Ryan, our very own Health Tech Fellow and A&E Locum Doctor, as he shares with you some of the mistakes he made in his first month when he first started locuming.
🦉 2 Years As A Locum Doctor. What Have I learnt?: In this article, Ryan, our resident Health Tech Fellow, shares with you his top advice for starting out as a locum doctor and some thoughts for you to give serious thought to before starting.
🌱 Can I locum in my F1 or F2 Year?: Are you allowed to locum during your Foundation Years? Where can I work? and can Messly help me find work during these years? Find out the answers to these and more in this short article.
👉 Pay, Finances, and Pensions
These articles are still currently being written, but check back here soon to find guides on finances for your F3 year, including how much you can earn as an F3 doctor, your NHS pension, and holiday pay.
💲 Locum Rates: What Can I Expect?: A guide through what you can 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.
🏙️ Locum Rates in London: This articles explains the difference between the rates for locum doctors in London and elsewhere in the UK, exactly where those rates apply, how much you can expect to be paid, and your options if you want to earn more.
💵 Managing Your Finances as a Locum Doctor: An overview of the key financial issues to consider as an F3 locum, including tax codes, your NHS pension, and getting tax rebates, with specialist advice from our friends at Medics' Money.
🧾 Decoding Your Locum Payslip: Confused about your first payslip as a Locum Doctor? We’ll take you through the basics so that you can understand and identify any issues affecting your pay.
📊 Locum Doctor Salary Calculator: Our free calculator lets you work out how much you could earn annually as a Locum Doctor, based on your grade, specialty and the region you work in
👉 Indemnity and Appraisals
🧐 Locum Doctors - Is Medical Indemnity Necessary?: We’ve partnered up with the MDDUS, one of the UK’s leading Indemnity providers for medical professionals, to bring you this in-depth guide. Covering the different types of legal issues you may face as a locum doctor, as well as answering questions about the different types of indemnity available.
⚖️ Real-Life Examples of Medico-Legal Issues for Locum Doctors: Join Dr Richard Brittain of the MDDUS, as he shares his personal experiences of medico-legal cases that he was directly involved in while working as a locum doctor.
👍 How to Ace Your Annual Appraisal as an F3 Doctor: A guide for keeping a portfolio throughout your year of locum work, and help with how to prepare for your annual appraisal towards the end of your F3 year.
📖 Do I Need an Appraisal as an F3 or Locum Doctor: This article takes a look at what a medical appraisal actually is, how it links to revalidation, whether you actually need to do one as an F3 or locum doctor, and whether you can get away without doing one.
👉 Video Guides
📽️ The BEST F3 Options for Junior Doctors: Dr Evey Clay talks through the most popular options for an F3 year, including locuming, trust grades, clinical fellowships, and spending your F3 year abroad.
📽️ Answering the 10 Most Common Questions About Locuming for Junior Doctors: In this video, Dr Evey Clay, an Opthalmology SpR, joins us to answer the 10 most common questions junior doctors ask about locuming.
👉 Starting Work
Specialty-Specific Locum Guides: We've also written a detailed guide for locuming in 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 and Orthopaedics
📖 Tips for Locuming in a New Specialty – Emergency Medicine
👉 Interviews
🎤 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. She's 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. Here she shares insights into 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 ensuring an F3 year spent locuming is 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.
👉 F3 in 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 your options and make the best choice for where to experience your own F3 year.
✅ How to Get Your Licence to Practice Medicine in New Zealand: A detailed guide 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 culture differ down under.
💬 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.
💬 My Life as an ED Consultant in Australia: An interview with a doctor who moved to work in Australia, sharing his motivations for leaving the UK, advice for finding a job abroad, how the healthcare system differs from the NHS, and more.
👉 Facebook Groups
Find locum work on your terms
The best locum agencies together in one place, competing to find you the best locum shifts. Managed for free through your Messly account.
