Things you can do to prepare for specialty training applications whilst still at medical school
By Faheem Bhatti
After medical school in the UK, doctors embark on two years of foundation training. Following this, doctors can opt to do further years as a foundation doctor, the so-called ‘F3’ and ‘F4’ etc or apply for specialty training.
Specialty training is the training programme whereby a doctor becomes fully qualified in a particular specialty of their interest. Training can range in length from as short as 3 years, to become a fully qualified general practitioner (GP), to over 8 years for some surgical and medical subspecialties.
In order to get a specialty training ‘job’ or ‘number’ an application process is involved. Each specialty has its own, slightly different, application process. In general, these can involve any of the following: assessment of portfolio (a collection of your achievements across education, teaching, research, audit and your commitment to that specialty), postgraduate exams and interviews. Obtaining a place on a specialty training programme is a competitive process and ratios of applicants to places have been rising over the past few years.
Whilst this can appear daunting and a long way ahead in the future, there are several manageable steps you can take to put yourself in the best position to get onto the specialty training pathway of your choice. In this blog series we’ll be demystifying the application processes for different specialties and sharing our tips for things you can do whilst you are still at medical school!
This week we’ll discuss some general tips for the process!
1. Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what you want to do!
Whilst some people know exactly what specialty they want to pursue from day one of medical school, many students don’t, and this is completely fine! Even if you aren’t sure what you want to do, you can still take steps to prepare for this future hurdle as many aspects of the application process are common between specialties. By selectively choosing activities to get involved in, you can prepare for multiple options simultaneously.
2. Start early!
Many specialties have a point-based scoring system for your portfolio. You can score a lot of points by getting involved in activities whilst you are still a medical student. In fact, it can be easier to set aside time for projects as a student compared to when you’re a doctor and busy with on-call and night shifts! Our top tip would be to start by scouting out the documents published on the details of the application process for the specialties that you are interested in to identify what they assess. You can then plan out how to most efficiently address these points. At first it can be overwhelming to see the breadth of activities that they assess, however by starting when you’re still at medical school, you’ll buy yourself more time, allowing you to spread them out in a manageable manner.
3. Collaborate
Whilst the application is a competitive process this doesn’t mean that you can’t work together! By finding people interested in the same specialties as you, whether that be on your placements at medical school or on forums such as the WPMN forum, you’ll be able to support each other in preparing your applications. For example, if you and a friend are both involved in research projects, it’s a great idea to help each other out. This way you both gain exposure to more projects, learn more skills and help each other with the workload. Similarly, attending courses or conferences is much more fun in a group than alone!
4. Identify a mentor
It can be very helpful to find someone who has already gone through the application process for the specialty you are interested in. This may be someone you encounter whilst on placement, elective or through other research and teaching projects that you are involved in. By having a mentor you’ll have someone who can guide you on which activities to get involved in, alert you to opportunities you weren’t aware of and someone to ask questions to.
Check out the WPMN website for our Doctor Representatives who will be more than happy for you to contact them and can give you further advice on a particular specialty (https://www.wpmedicsnetwork.com/doctor-reps). The connections you make whilst you are at medical school can be invaluable and who knows, you may even go on to working with the same people later in your career!
5. Funding