Hospital guide for people coming in from elsewhere: Addenbrooke’s: huge (1000 beds) research centre and teaching hospital. It’s a tertiary centre, so you’ll see some more of the weird and wonderful as well as the run of the mill from the local area. It’s going to be an e-hospital by the time we start, so everything should be computerised with one password for all the systems. Large food court downstairs with staff discount in the canteen, and has a spectacular public health fail: a wildly popular Burger King (apparently it’s on contract until 2020). Accommodation is meant to be quite standard but really expensive (I’ve heard £700 quoted)- you’d be better off getting together and renting privately. If you’re super nice, some Cambridge finalists moving out may be able to put you on to some good houses . Cambridge itself is super lovely and very pretty, but sometimes a bit on the expensive side (but not as bad as London). Bedford: 400 bed DGH. New-ish buildings, decent canteen that does staff discounts. Hospital accommodation is new, good quality and 5 minutes away from the hospital. It’s a large building laid out in corridors with one bathroom between 2 and a good sized kitchen between about 6 (2 fridges, hob, oven). Not sure on price. Bedford itself is fairly nice. Population is diverse with some deprived areas, so a good mix of medicine about. Hinchingbrooke: Smallish DGH close to Cambridge. Most of the really complex stuff just goes straight down the road to Addenbrooke’s, so this is a good place to learn bread and butter basic medicine. Accommodation is a bit manky to be honest- best to rent privately! FYI, it’s in 4 bed flats with a kitchen. The town itself is smallish and quite pretty, and if you want to go shopping/out etc, Cambridge is just down the road and the Busway links straight in to Cambridge city centre. Bury St Edmunds (West Suffolk): 480 bed DGH. I did psychiatry here, so I’ll ask some of my colleagues for their opinion on the hospital itself. The town itself is really quite pretty, but the accommodation is in 2 groups- one group of newish OK buildings, and one group of asbestos infested godawful dumps (guess which one I got put in on placement!) But other students in the new buildings seem to have been quite happy. Papworth: supra-regional tertiary centre for all sorts of cool cardiac and respiratory stuff. Slightly odd layout (it’s an old TB hospital) but does so much cool stuff you won’t mind getting lost. Patients tend to be more complex, so I’ve heard (not sure if it’s true, don’t quote me on this!) that FY posts are generally unbanded as we can’t do on calls. The town itself is small and sleepy, but you’re not far from Cambridge- although there is barely any public transport that runs to Cambridge. The accommodation the students were in was absolutely awesome, so if there’s any on offer for doctors it may well be good quality. We were placed in new houses that were seriously nice. Minor disadvantage of Papworth is that it seems to be a black hole for phone signal- I could only get signal in the uppermost corner of my window on the top floor… Peterborough: Very shiny new DGH with mostly single rooms for patients etc. Population is very diverse with some deprived pockets, so there’s some interesting medicine about. Doctor’s mess seems to be quite active. The city centre has some good shopping, restaurants etc. Accommodation- there are some roughish areas in Peterborough, and while we haven’t had any trouble at all, we’ve heard it’s worth paying a little bit more to be in a better area. King’s Lynn (Queen Elizabeth hospital): 500 bed DGH. Strong farming community about, so 2 interesting sets of patients about- 1. Farming community with occupational health issues, and 2. People addicting to ketamine (nicked from the local vets). Again, diverse population with some interesting medicine kicking about. The hospital itself is right on the outskirts of town. The town centre looks fairly nice with some shopping and eating out etc. Accommodation- 4 bed flats of decent quality, with bathroom, hob, oven, fridge freezer. Local knowledge- the road known as the A14 is the road from *hell* that regularly feeds Addenbrooke’s trauma centre! Well worth knowing if you’re thinking of commuting- this road does frequently cause problems and is worth factoring in. Hope that helps! I’ll put up a list of stuff I haven’t covered so that others can sort these out. x
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:00:57 +0000
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