Foundation doctors' perspectives on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lessons for the future

The foundation programme is a 2-year training programme for newly qualified doctors and aims to bridge the gap between medical school and specialty training. The pandemic led to some major disruptions to foundation training. As foundation trainees, we encountered new challenges: there were reduced learning opportunities and our future paths became uncertain with changes to specialty training applications and membership exams. However, it is said that every crisis creates new opportunities and is a test of our resilience and innovativeness. There was the adoption of novel teaching methods, new research opportunities, increased importance given to teamwork and support for our wellbeing and mental health. We learnt lessons from this crisis that we should take forward to improve foundation training for the future.