Terms of Use

1. What First Shift Ireland is

First Shift Ireland is an independent orientation programme for doctors starting work in Irish hospitals. Its content is subjective and experience-led: it is written from the personal experiences of doctors working in Ireland and drawn together from publicly available resources, many of which are listed in the Sources section at the end of individual lessons.

First Shift Ireland is provided by Joshua Alexander & Abd al-Rahman Tahir, 77 Lower Camden Street, Saint Kevin's, Dublin 2, D02 XE80.

It is not accredited training or CPD, and it is not a substitute for your hospital induction, supervision or senior support. It is not medical, clinical, legal, immigration, tax or registration advice, and it does not tell you how to manage an individual patient. Your hospital’s local protocols and current guidance from official sources, such as the Medical Council, the HSE and Revenue, always take precedence over anything here. Practice and rules change, so check the current official source before you rely on a detail, work within your competence and ask a senior when you are unsure.

First Shift Ireland is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting on behalf of the HSE, the Medical Council, any training body or any hospital. Examples, cases and practice shifts are fictional.

2. Free content and programme access

The medical team-roles lesson and the First Day practice shift are free and need no account. Programme access costs €89.95 (EUR, a single one-off payment) and gives four calendar months of access to all lessons, the On-Call practice shift and the toolkit, including updates made during that period. There is no subscription and no automatic renewal. While your access is active it cannot be bought again; once it ends, a further purchase gives another four calendar months.

Orders are processed by our online reseller, Paddle.com (Paddle.com Market Limited), which is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle takes your payment, charges VAT where it applies and sends your receipt, and its checkout buyer terms also apply to the payment. You can contact us or Paddle about an order or a refund.

Online payment is not yet available, so programme access cannot currently be bought on this site. Before any purchase, checkout will show the price, what is included and the access dates.

When your access ends, the paid materials lock again. Your account page shows when your access ends. Your saved progress stays with your account; how long account data is kept is explained in the Privacy notice.

3. Promotional offers

From time to time we may offer promotional codes or other offers. An offer may be subject to eligibility conditions, an expiry date and limits on how many times it can be used; these are disclosed when the offer is made. A code changes the price shown before you complete your order and does nothing on its own.

4. Your account and personal use

You sign in with Google, Apple or an emailed sign-in link. Keep your sign-in links and account private. The materials are for your own learning: you may print and download provided material for personal study, but you must not share your account, redistribute or sell protected content, or try to get around access controls.

Please do not enter or share patient information, identifiable case details or other confidential workplace information anywhere on the site or in emails to us.

If an account is misused, we may restrict or suspend it in a way that is proportionate. Where practicable we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond. This does not affect your consumer rights.

5. Ownership and other sources

The programme text, illustrations and other original materials belong to their respective rights holders. Access gives you permission for personal use, not ownership or a right to republish. Linked official resources and other third-party materials are subject to their own terms; a link does not mean endorsement.

6. Changes to the programme and these terms

We correct and update lessons as sources and practice change. If we change these terms, the new version will carry a new number and date, and you will be asked to agree to it before continuing to use protected materials. A change will not remove access you have already paid for or affect your statutory rights.

7. Refunds, cancellation and your consumer rights

You can ask for a full refund within 14 calendar days of purchase by emailing firstshiftireland@gmail.com, as long as you have not opened or used any of the paid content. If you are unhappy for any other reason, tell us: we will try to put it right, and if that doesn’t resolve it we will review a refund request case by case. The details are in the Refund and Cancellation Policy.

Your statutory rights under Irish and EU consumer law, including the Consumer Rights Act 2022, are not affected by these terms. That includes your right to cancel a distance contract where it applies, and your right to have the programme put right, or to a price reduction or refund, if it is not supplied or does not match what was described.

8. Complaints

If something is wrong, or you are unhappy with how a request was handled, email firstshiftireland@gmail.com. Independent information about your consumer rights is available from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

9. Responsibility and the law that applies

We take reasonable care with the material, but an orientation programme cannot cover every situation in your hospital or guarantee any outcome, such as a job, registration decision or training place. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any responsibility that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, or your mandatory consumer rights. Irish law applies to these terms, and you keep any mandatory protection and right to bring proceedings that the law of the country where you live gives you.