Medics Academy

Emma CoxEmma Cox is the Quality Improvement and Emergency Medicine Fellow at Barnet Hospital, Royal Free Trust and the Chief Product Officer at Medics.Academy. Throughout her career she has worked to improve access to education. She has taught abroad, delivered Access talks for Trinity College, and developed and delivered an Access programme for Brampton Manor Academy. She lectures on the 2016 Junior Doctor Contract at the University College London, Bart’s and King’s College London and has published and presented internationally on the topic. Emma has examined for UCL and written questions for the Medical Schools Council Assessment Alliance. She has also hosted a conference about the 2016 Junior Doctor Contract which was attended by the BMA and NHS Employers.Vidushi GolashVidushi Golash is an ophthalmic surgeon in training with a passion for medical education, technological innovation and clinical leadership. She’s the Clinical Product Manager at Medics.Academy, co-leading the creation of our e-learning tool “F | Docs”. Throughout her undergraduate training Vidushi has been a student representative for the Junior Association for Study of Medical Education (JASME). She has organised pioneering medical education conferences at University of Leeds, written exam questions for the Medical Schools Council Assessment Alliance (MSCAA) and published innovative ideas for the improvement of medical education in the accredited journal BMJ Leader.BackgroundAs Foundation Year 1 doctors we were frequently working longer than our contracted hours. We decided to investigate whether there was room to increase our working hours so we would be fairly paid for the hours we worked. However when we looked at the work schedules we found:- All of the FY1s were rostered to work more hours that they were paid for (average difference 2¼ hrs/wk and an underpayment of £1,499.25 per annum)- Annual leave and bank holidays were omitted from the salary calculations - All of the FY1s were paid to work different hours for the same job (range 42 hrs/wk to 46 hrs/wk).We shared our findings with the Junior Doctors’ Forum, the Guardian Of Safe Working Hours and Human Resources, and a back payment for the extra hours was issued. With stakeholder involvement, we created new work schedules and a rota which were fair and reflective of the hours actually worked.During this process we were struck by how little doctors had engaged with the 2016 Junior Doctor Contract. When we surveyed junior doctors at a London hospital over half (58%) of the respondents did not fully understand what a work schedule was.  Nearly all (85%) did not feel confident about how they were being paid (n=45). We therefore created a teaching programme about the 2016 Junior Doctor Contract. We deliver the programme to final year students at several London universities.