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This chapter describes changes aimed at improving the working lives of doctors. The British Medical Association (BMA) negotiated a ‘New Deal’, which established a contractual limit for doctors-in-training of fifty-six hours worked per week from August 2003. The European Working Time Directive (EWTD) was created by the Council of the European Union in 1993, which defines minimum requirements in relation to working hours, rest periods, annual leave, and working arrangements for night workers. Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) was a major reform of postgraduate medical training, devised to improve the quality of patient care through better education and training for doctors.

This chapter discusses the structure of training in palliative medicine in Great Britain and describes the various bodies that oversee it. Under the Modernising Medical Careers (MMC), postgraduate training in Palliative Medicine follows core medial training (CMT), with entry to Palliative Medicine at Specialty Training level 3 (ST3), following a minimum of two years CMT and the achievement of membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (MRCP) or membership of the Royal Colleges of General Physicians (MRCGP). Some of the bodies that oversee palliative medicine include the Postgraduate Medical Education Training Board (PMETB), the London Deanery, and the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board (JRCPTB).

Bankruptcy and insolvency were the types of career turbulence that were most likely to interrupt medical careers. Insolvency might entail a stay in debtor’s prison. This chapter examines the experiences of men who suffered financial setback and explores their access to support systems. The Royal Medical Benevolent Fund was established in 1836 and might have offered a prop, but analysis of their records suggests that medical bankrupts and insolvents were rarely among their beneficiaries. Therefore other sources of informal support must be inferred, beyond formal medical charity.

This chapter outlines the establishment of formal higher specialist training for non-medical public health practitioners, leading to specialist status. It charts the early beginnings of individual schemes appearing in different Deaneries from 1999, leading to the development of common approaches, formal funding via NMET for non-medics. Public health benefited from a unified curriculum from 2007 through PMETB then, from 2008, following ‘Modernising Medical Careers’, a unified approach to recruitment across all Deaneries. From 2011 there has been a single recruitment system to the training scheme for medics and non-medics across the whole of the UK apart from Northern Ireland. The chapter provides statistics on the number of non-medical trainees and the current balance between medics and non-medics recruited into higher specialist training. It concludes with outlining the present system in England for public health training as part of the new Health Education England.

This chapter looks into the life of Thomas Sadler Roberts as he began his medical career. At the same time he had to be a dutiful son to an ailing father, and a good husband, and father. Following his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1885, Roberts returned briefly to Minneapolis to see his parents and to propose to Jennie Cleveland. After a period of residency, he returned in 1886 where he got married and was able to buy a home. That space would also serve as his office. Soon after, Roberts became a father to three children, Thomas Cleveland, Catharine Lyon, and John Carroll. Adjacent to changes in Roberts’ life, Minnesota was experiencing changes of its own brought by rapid modernization and urbanization, which Roberts noted in his journal, severely affected the wildlife. One notable example was when he discovered that the last Passenger Pigeon was recorded in 1895.