I'm a junior doctor in the NHS fighting against coronavirus - this is my message of hope for new starters

In the space of three months, everything has changed. The rulebook for starting work as a doctor has been torn up and rewritten. You were preparing for exams and planning electives in sunny Belize. But instead of revising and dreaming of sipping mojitos on the beach, you’re being drafted onto the frontline of a global health crisis.

You will have been rapidly promoted to a public health expert in your household and been appointed virologist-in-residence at your Zoom parties, all before receiving your medical licence. For everyone working in the NHS, these are unsettling times – but especially so for those yet to work their first shift.

Oddly enough, a pandemic might be a good time for junior doctors to enter the NHS. No one has ever been 100 per cent prepared to make the transition from student to professional. But right now, there has never been more public love and support for healthcare workers. I trundled off to a nightshift last Thursday to a chorus of pots and pans, whoops and cheers.

This virus has also generated enormous comradery between colleagues. To beat Covid-19, everyone – from students to consultants – has to learn new skills, and this a great leveller. Overnight, Covid-19 has moved us away from an antiquated hierarchical structure that stifles learning in hospital.

A few months ago, I was namelessly handing orthopaedic consultants instruments in the operating theatre. Yesterday, I was being taught how to run a ventilator with a group of them were all out of our depth, but as the most recently graduated, it was my vague recollections expiratory pressures that were suddenly of value.

Despite feeling it, you are not alone. As I write this, the NHS is drafting in every doctor in the country. Before starting my first job as a doctor, I heard horror stories of my newly-graduated peers finding themselves responsible for an entire ward of sick patients. But I’ve just received my new rota, and I’ve never seen a shift so well-staffed.

So though you’re starting work earlier than expected, you’ll be surrounded by people to turn to for advice and support. No one expects nor wants you to single-handedly resuscitate patients whose lungs are failing them, but you can be part of a team that does.

It’s true that this virus is scary, but oddly enough, I have never had more rewarding shifts than those I have done in the last fortnight. People aren’t turning up to A&E with stubbed toes or because they couldn’t get a GP appointment. Those that come to hospital genuinely need our help.

This is a time to practice real acute medicine, the kind you have spent the last four years simulating. And if you can show kindness and compassion to the patients and their families as you do it, you are worth your weight in gold.

As members of the Covid Cohort, you are being fast-tracked into a health service which is changing every day, and it will be a challenging few months for us all. But despite the grim reading in the newspapers, I hope I have highlighted some silver linings for those starting on the wards earlier than planned.

Silas Webb is an F3 doctor working at St George’s Hospital in London, where he is about to start working as a clinical fellow in ICU.