A senior house officer is the title given to a junior doctor undergoing training within a certain medical speciality in the United Kingdom. Senior house officers, or junior doctors, are supervised by consultants and registrars who oversee their daily training and progression within their career, and are the designated clinical and educational supervisors of that individual.

In the year of 2002, the United Kingdom Department of Health, through its umbrella policy of Modernising Medical Careers, set out the educational content of the two year foundation programme which was to be pursued by newly qualified doctors in the United Kingdom. The way in which junior doctors are trained in the United Kingdom has recently seen significant changes, including an altered curriculum. This was rolled out during August 2005 and described the key knowledge, skills and attitudes that must be achieved by senior house officers before they progress onto specialist training, having also satisfied supervisors of their advancing education within the field of medicine.

As part of a doctor’s training, an individual will typically work as a senior house officer for two to three years. This can be longer depending on the individual’s personal progression, before selecting a certain speciality to focus their attention on. It is then that a specialist registrar allows and approves specialist training in that particular field of medical study.

Senior house officers must also be approved by a postgraduate Dean, as well as passing any appropriate postgraduate exams in order to qualify for progression within their specialist educational field. Senior house officers are typically employed for periods that last anywhere from four to six months, with these positions often requiring a rotation in roles, where the senior house officer is commissioned for a time of two to three years, while spending six months at a time training in different departments or allied hospitals. Although this training allows for variation within roles worked by senior house officers, it also provides a problematic situation where junior doctors are only able to be in a selected position for a limited amount of time before moving on to another position. The continual changing of roles means that individuals are unable to focus their attention on a sole position for a long period of time; therefore their experience can also be limited too.

It was in 2005 that the British Medical Association reported that they believed there was a significant, insufficient amount of senior house officer posts available to provide training for newly qualified doctors who had completed their undergraduate medical training. Postgraduate Deans and the Department of Health disputed this and introduced what is commonly known as the foundation year two, a one year - post-registration year, in which basic training is introduced in a more thorough setting. Many senior house officer posts were absorbed into this relatively new core medical education programme.

The senior house officer programme is varied with the intention of allowing candidates to gain experience in a wide range of specialties, then focusing on a chosen speciality.