Background
New doctors are expected to assess and manage acutely deteriorating patients from their first days in the hospital. However, current evidence suggests that medical graduates are not prepared for this. We aimed to explore junior doctors’ first experiences with unwell patients and how they developed preparedness over time.

Methods
We conducted seven semi-structured interviews with doctors in their first postgraduate year. The interview transcripts underwent inductive thematic analysis using consensual qualitative research approaches. Themes identified were categorised into early experiences of unpreparedness, first experiences of genuine preparedness, and making sense of how they became prepared. Reflection on how participants progressed between the two was facilitated through a sorting and ranking exercise.

Results
Most participants initially felt unprepared when responding to acutely unwell patients. They described feeling overwhelmed, apprehensive and challenged. Two main challenges involved knowing when to escalate, and feeling expected to perform beyond their level of competency. A lack of acute care exposure at medical school was a common thread. All participants felt prepared to respond to unwell patients three to six months after starting work. Hands-on experience, reflection, simulation and multidisciplinary team-working were consistently ranked as the most useful learning experiences.

Conclusion
Starting work as a doctor is a challenging time and preparedness to manage an acutely deteriorating patient is a common area of concern. As preparedness in acute care ranks poorly compared to other outcomes, we see this as an important area for improvement. Our findings suggest that undergraduates may lack sufficient opportunities for scaffolded decision making in acute care, and that increasing the intensity of clinical shadowing may improve preparedness and should inform future educational interventions.