Medical Career  Center

You should be aware that during your Foundation Programme you will be responsible for taking control of your learning. This may feel slightly strange after spending 5 years at medical school but it is to enable you to start to operate at a greater level of independent learning than you perhaps have been used to.

You will need to ensure that all your assessments are completed and that you attend your teaching sessions. It is vitally important that you keep your Portfolio / E-portfolio up to date and that you seek out opportunities to learn as much as possible during your Foundation Years.

You should get involved with all members of the health team, not just doctors. Nurses, Physiotherapists and other Allied Health Professionals (AHP) will give you a full overview of the activities that are carried out within the hospital.

Competition into Specialty Training can be fierce and you will need to stand out from the crowd to succeed. During your Foundation Years you should be proactive and look for opportunities to enhance your application. You could do this by:

1.     Audit 

Reviewing how something is done and comparing this to what should actually be happening according to guidelines.  

2.Presentations

Gain confidence presenting to colleagues and peers. You could seek out opportunities to present at:

o    Departmental Meetings

o    Regional Events

o    National Seminars

Perhaps you could present your findings from an audit you have carried out?

3.    Teaching

You should discuss with your Educational Supervisor if there are any opportunities for you help out with teaching. Participants could be medical students, foundation doctors, or a multi-disciplinary team. The teaching could be ward based, as part of a journal club (see below), a lecture or a tutorial.

4.    Courses

You maybe able to attend courses as part of your study days. You should investigate courses that will add value to your personal development and you can discuss this with your Educational Supervisor.

5.    Publications

If you could write an interesting paper and get this published this would make you a very interesting candidate for specialty training indeed.

6.    Journal Clubs

A journal club is a group of individuals who meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in  scientific literature.

7.    Tasters

Organising 1 or 2 taster sessions during your foundation years can help you to further explore a specialty.

8.    Networking

Speaking to a range of consultants, specialty trainees in a specialty that you are interested in can help in your career exploration. It will help with your career decision and also at interview where you can demonstrate commitment to that specialty. Look out for careers fairs or Royal College events etc, where you may have the opportunity to speak to people. You will find that on the whole people are happy to be approached and to talk about their roles.

9.    Case-studies