I am a junior doctor and medical educator working in intensive care. Part of this job includes picking up critically unwell patients from the emergency department 'shop floor' and taking them to a place of safety but, in reality, this is a messy practice. Despite the years of training, simulation drills and clinical experience, there remains an organised chaos to this endeavour.

Part of unpicking this phenomenon of complexity is when we start teaching medical students, who are yet to even understand the fundamentals, about the environment of the busy shop floor. How can we prepare them for this volatile clinical environment? Can the risk of burnout in our new staff be reduced? When should our students take the jump from the simulation suite to the real world?