In this issue of the Journal, Westbrook and colleagues studied the work of interns, residents and registrars across four wards in a Sydney teaching hospital (→ All in a day’s work: an observational study to quantify how and with whom doctors on hospital wards spend their time).1 Their findings are limited by the study’s small sample size, and the fact that each participant was observed, on average, for just under 8 hours, and not during evening or night shifts. Nevertheless, their key findings are pertinent to understanding a day in the life of a doctor-in-training.