Valuing the workforce who value their patients.

I have found writing this editorial a real challenge; I have found myself besieged by a range of conflicting emotions and reactions when reading both the articles in this edition of the FHJ and the wider press, as well as during and after conversations with colleagues about the state of the NHS today. When the Editorial Board commissioned this edition, focusing on trainees and junior consultants, we had no idea of the changes that would be affecting the healthcare landscape today, nor the pessimistic narrative that appears to beset the cadre we highlight. By dint of the subject matter, this is a more hospital-based and physician-orientated edition than many; however, the articles within it are pertinent to the wider healthcare service, both hospital and non-hospital based. Reading the mainstream media, one would be forgiven for thinking we are in the midst of a total financial meltdown of the NHS and that the wider medical workforce is disenfranchised, demotivated and entirely self-serving. Based on my observations of the last few months, …