The COVID-19 pandemic has created many challenges for health services worldwide. In the UK, our trainees have shouldered much of the burden and made many sacrifices to meet these challenges. Anaesthetic trainees have been redeployed to staff surge critical care beds [1], the cancellation of most elective surgery has disrupted their training and pressure of work has reduced formal teaching sessions. Unsurprisingly, poor morale, burnout and deterioration in general well-being have been widely reported [2, 3]. On top of these problems, the August 2021 Specialist Trainee (ST3) recruitment into specialised anaesthesia training has caused disappointment for a large cohort of anaesthetic trainees. There was twice the usual number of applicants, with 1056 applying for just 359 ST3 posts to commence in August 2021 [4, 5]. The unprecedented large number of applications this year was due to the coming together of a perfect storm of circumstances: the introduction of the new training curriculum; disruption to examinations due to the pandemic; and the reduction in opportunities to work abroad being the most important.

COVID-19 大流行给全球卫生服务带来了许多挑战。在英国，我们的学员承担了很大的负担，做出了很多牺牲来迎接这些挑战。麻醉实习生已被重新部署到紧急重症监护病床 [ 1 ]，大多数选择性手术的取消扰乱了他们的培训，工作压力减少了正式的教学课程。意料之中的是，士气低落、倦怠和整体幸福感恶化已被广泛报道 [ 2, 3]。除了这些问题之外，2021 年 8 月专科实习生 (ST3) 招募到专门的麻醉培训中，这让一大批麻醉实习生感到失望。申请人数是平时的两倍，有 1056 人申请了 2021 年 8 月开始的 359 个 ST3 职位 [ 4, 5 ]。今年空前的大量申请是由于一场完美风暴的结合：引入了新的培训课程；因大流行而中断考试；最重要的是减少在国外工作的机会。