Thought I should chime in here as well.
Work as a junior doctor is incredibly variable, not just within hospitals & departments but even within individual teams within departments. For example, my current cardiology rotation has 3 different teams all of which do varying levels of overtime & have varying levels of support. A lot of it comes down to who the bosses are & how the units are run. Some hospitals / units don't pay overtime as a general rule, others will pay every minute of it.
There are certainly terms which are fairly consistent with regards to the presence of overtime & the availability of clinical support - these tend to be the more 'acute' terms like surgery & medical specialities that have a lot of emergency cases or are considered high turnover wards (lots of admissions & lots of rapid discharges) - e.g. cardiology.
At the same time there are also terms which are very consistently 8-4 jobs with minimal overtime, these tend to be jobs (at a junior level) that do not have a lot of turnover or don't have a lot of emergency / critical / immediate jobs. Psychiatry is a reasonable example of this though again it depends on how the unit is run. Palliative care is probably another good example as the majority of things (at a junior level) are all planned & all go relatively slowly when compared to the rapid admission/discharge rate of cardiology/surgery etc.
There are also jobs which are very strict about their rostering & make work hours / getting you out on time a priority. These tend to be the shift-work jobs such as Emergency / Intensive care / Ward call jobs with 12 hour shifts etc. You can invariably become trapped & work overtime but often there is someone coming in to directly replace your job & so you can get away on time.
As you can expect from my above description I have had a fairly variable experience in terms of stressful jobs, long hours & fatigue. I have called in 'sick' because I knew I needed the sleep or a day off to relax, I have made mistakes because of my fatigue/high workload (thankfully caught & corrected). I have had days/weeks where I wanted nothing more than stop getting out of bed at 5:30AM & getting home at 7PM having not been out in the sunlight. At the same time I have also taken additional overtime shifts because the work I was doing at the time was so stress-free that I was happy to take the money in exchange for the fatigue.
It is hard to give an accurate picture of what working as a junior doctor is like so instead here is a snapshot of my current job:
Monday - 0730 start. Typically many discharges prior to the weekend & so only have the 'longer' stay patients on Monday morning / ~10 patients at most on a Monday. Usually finish on time at ~1600-1630.
Tuesday - 0700 start. "On take" day which means all cardiology patients admitted to the hosptial in the last 24 hours come under my team's care. Patient list expands with anywhere from ~10 - 20 new admissions. Most of these will be discharged on the same day after a run of normal investigations. Some will get interventions & get discharged 24 hours after that. Rarely make it out of the hospital by 1730.
Wednesday - 0730 start. Typically discharge another 5 or so patients after observing for another 24 hours. Usually back to our 'baseline' or if it's a bad week will have added a few more patients to the 'longer' stay patient list. Hopefully have sent as many home from the Tuesday admissions as possible. Usually out by 1700.
Thursday - 0700 start. "On take" day again. This day depends entirely on how many patients from Tuesday's "on take" we got out before today. If we got them all out then it's essentially a repeat of Tuesday, if there were any still here from Tuesday then Thursday sucks & I won't make it out of the hospital before 1830.
Friday - 0700 start. Get as many patients as possible discharged before the weekend or organised to be discharged over the weekend. Everyone needs a plan for the upcoming 2 days so even if we only have 10 patients this can still take a while. Usually get out by 1700.
In regards to hours, I've done some unpaid overtime. For example last week I probably did maybe 8 hours unpaid overtime cumulatively? Honestly, I don't see it is a big deal. [...] my overtime inevitably reflects some of my own inherent (but improving... I hope!) inefficiencies.
I personally think this is the wrong way to look at overtime. Every minute you spend in the hospital should be paid for, even if it is as a result of your 'inefficiency' as a junior. The departments you are working in as a junior doctor are well aware of the fact that they are employing & giving work to junior doctors & that it comes with an element of ineffiency when compared to employing only senior registrars / having bosses do all the work. As such you should be paid for your work & also keep in mind that if you are not being paid to work then you are also unlikely being insured for any jobs that you do while not being paid.
Even ~8 hours cumulatively is ~$320/week before tax as a junior doctor. Over a year thats ~$16,000 & that's not taking into account overtime loading (with overtime loading it is $480/week or $24,000). I have tried to claim all the overtime that I work as a junior. The vast majority of it has been approved and the terms/rotations that haven't I will refuse to work at again.