Thursday 20 December 2007

Jobs Ahoy

20
20th December 2007
5 Days to go till Christmas

tlm fact: I once spent 22 hours straight playing football manager.

This announcement which appeared on the UKFPO website yesterday was a welcome relief. Apparently all UK medicine graduates are guaranteed a 2 year foundation post. This comes after reports that thousands of non-UK graduates would push the numbers of people applying well above the number of posts available. Apparently there were 7000 applicants for 7200 posts. This will hopefully quash some of the rumours floating around such as there being thousands of applicants for the NW deanery alone.

I always suspected (or perhaps it was just wishful thinking) that things wouldn't be quite as bad as some of the scare mongers had suggested, so I'm very pleased to hear this announcement. Now we all have to sit tight until the 9th of January to find out which deanery we've been posted to. The UKFPO announcement also said that the majority of people would be placed in their first choice deanery which is also quite reassuring. I still don't know how my first choice deanery is going to allocate particular jobs. The NW are using a 2-round process, first, allocating people to trusts before the second round where people are allocated to particular tracks, this is all done using the same preference system and scores by which we are allocated to deaneries. This doesn't sound all that bad so hopefully it'll be something similar wherever I end up. There is a slim chance that interviews might be used but personally I can't see that happening. It is quite likely that I might have to sit down and rank in preference order 200 or so jobs, that would be fun (anything involving Psych being automatically rejected to the bottom.)

Of course all this is dependant on a couple of factors a) that I pass my exams, b) that my application hasn't been swallowed by the computer never to be seen again. Knowing my luck with 'random' allocation i'll end up in the Shetlands, or worse, the North West!



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey LM,

That is fantastic news! I share your concerns when it comes to FY year, even if they are a way off for me.

Anyways, here's wishing you and missbliss a very happy christmas and new year. Best of luck for Jan 9th too!

Harry

Anonymous GP said...

Great News, I just finished a psych rotation.. hasn't been my cup of tea either. Hope you and Miss Bliss have an awesome Christmas!

R xx

G said...

Hey!

I found your blog through Weary Medic's - I'm liking it :D

I got allocated to the NW last year (8th choice). It was supposedly the only deanery that used the two-step process. Everyone in London had to rank 400 jobs. Needless to say, I had a pre-employment interview after allocation. They're probably the only deanery who do those too - none of my London/ Wessex/ Oxbridge/Midlands friends had the same thing.

When push came to shove, I failed one of my finals, so I declined my place in the NW and applied for non-training locums conditional to passing. Other people who passed finals (but hated their MTAS allocation) took up training-F1 jobs of finalists who failed - some decent teaching hospital jobs came up; none of which involved psych ;)

Needless to say, I've rejected the NW as automatic allocation in FPAS and applied with the open-pool. I'll be crossing my fingers for Wednesday too.

Best of luck,
x