MEDICAL CAREERS –

AN OVERVIEW

ELAINE DENNISS

MEDICAL CAREERS

CONSULTANT

Key Messages

• Careers support is available to you throughout

your course

• Where and when you can use careers support

• Totally confidential – don’t have to be referred

Why do Medical Students need Careers Advice?

• Seems ironic that medial students would use

Careers Advice

• Medicine is a vocational course

• Surely med students ‘know what they want to do –

they want to be a doctors’

• Yes….but can be still be very useful

How we can help

• One-to-one careers guidance

• Career events and talks

• Personality and aptitude testing

• CV advice and checking

• Practice interviews

• Skills workshops

Which Medical Students seek Careers Advice?

• Those who discover they hate Medicine

• Those who find Medicine too difficult

• Those who have ‘personal problems’

• Those who parents are doctors but who never really wanted to be a Medic themselves

• Those who fail their exams

• Those who aren’t coping

• Those who want to drop out for other reasons

• Those who want to earn more money as an Investment Banker

Common Questions• Other students on my course seem to be doing lots of extra things (research,

leading societies, student reps etc). Should I be doing the same?

• How can I gain research experience?

• I’m interested in working in global health when I qualify. How can I get

experience?

• I’m not sure medicine is for me. Can I take a year out to gain experience in other

fields/work overseas etc.

• I’m not sure medicine is for me. What else can I do with a medical degree?

• I’m interested in doing my training in the US. What do I need to do?

• What can I be doing to improve my chances of getting my top choice of

Foundation School?

• Can I take a year out before starting my Foundation Training?

• What can I be doing to improve my chances of securing an Academic Foundation

Programme (ACP)

• I’m not sure which course to choose for my intercalated BSc – can you help?

• I don’t know which speciality I want to go into. Should I be worried about this?

• How will I select my jobs (rotations) on the Foundation Programme?

• Which elective should I choose?

UCL CAREERS SERVICE

Senior medical posts

Specialty training – uncoupled, run-through

Core specialty training

Higher specialty training

GP Training

Academic Fellowship Programme

Foundation Programme (2 years)

Academic Foundation Programme (2 years)

GMC registration after F1

MBBS Degree

Basic Medical Career Structure

Le

ss th

an

FT

train

ing

,

time o

ut, n

on

-train

ing c

are

ers

Other

Options:

Academic

Medicine

Medical

Education

Work

Overseas

Research

CCT

Specialty Training Pathway

Consultant

Specialty Registrar (SpR)

ST4-7/8

Senior House Officer or GPST

ST1-3 (CT1-3)

FY2

FY1

Provisional GMC Registration

Full GMC Registration

Completion of MBBS

Completion of College Membership Exams Parts 1 (and 2)

Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT)

Entry onto Specialty Register

Completion of College Membership Exams (usually by ST4)

Core Specialty Training

• Core Medical Training (2 years)

• Core Surgical Training (2 years)

• Psychiatry (CT1 – CT3)

(Acute Care Common Stem – ACCS)

(3 years)

• Acute Medicine (from ACCS and CMT)

• Anaesthesia

• Emergency Medicine

• Intensive Care Medicine (from ACCS, CMT, Anaesthesia

core training)

Run Through Specialities

• Chemical pathology

• Clinical radiology

• Emergency Medicine (new initiative)

• General Practice

• Histopathology

• Medical microbiology/virology – microbiology

• Medical microbiology/virology – virology

• Neurosurgery

• Obstetrics & Gynaecology

• Paediatrics

• Public Health

Shape of Training (Greenaway Report) Patients and the public need more doctors who are capable of providing general care in broad

specialties across a range of different settings. This is being driven by a growing number of people

with multiple co-morbidities, an ageing population, health inequalities and increasing patient

expectations.

We will continue to need doctors who are trained in more specialised areas to meet local patient and

workforce needs.

Postgraduate training needs to adapt to prepare medical graduates to deliver safe and effective

general care in broad specialties.

Medicine has to be a sustainable career with opportunities for doctors to change roles and specialties

throughout their careers.

Local workforce and patient needs should drive opportunities to train in new specialties or to

credential in specific areas.

Doctors in academic training pathways need a training structure that is flexible enough to allow them

to move in and out of clinical training while meeting the competencies and standards of that training.

Full registration should move to the point of graduation from medical school, provided there are

measures in place to demonstrate graduates are fit to practise at the end of medical school. Patients’

interests must be considered first and foremost as part of this change

What I wish I’d known on my first day at Med

School….

What I wish I’d known on my first day at Medical

School….

• ‘The most important thing I can think of is the need to start thinking aboutcareers and what you want to do after you qualify. It is quite easy to driftthrough the 5 years of medical school without thinking about it, and then suddenly realise at the end of it that you are being rushed into making a crucial decision that will affect the rest of your life. F2 Doctor

• ‘The era of floating around as a junior doctor in different specialities for a few years before taking a final decision has long gone. Important decisions have to made very soon after qualifying.’ F1 Doctor

•‘Talk to doctors in different specialties about what they do and try togain as much experience as you can in various different fields as astudent. Think about what you want to do- both in medicine and in life ingeneral, as your medical career will have a huge impact on how you live.’Year 5 Medical Student

How we can help

• One-to-one careers guidance

• Career events and talks

• Personality and aptitude testing

• CV advice and checking

• Practice interviews

• Skills workshops

Where we are• 4th Floor, ULU

Building, Malet Street

• Mon – Thu 9:30 – 5

pm; Fri – 11 am – 5

pm

• careers@ucl.ac.uk

• 020 7866 3600