Computerised Fate

My future (or the next two years of it) are now in the hands of the Severn deanery computer system. I finally plucked up the courage to click submit yesterday after weeks of wrangling over the order of the 287 jobs I had to rank. In the end, I didn't have to rank all of them but I still had to rank way more than my friends in the NW (who have about 12 to 16 jobs to rank having already been allocated to hospitals). I devoted hours to this ranking process, i'm not sure why, part of me wishes there was a lucky dip option. I'm resigned to the fact I might well end up with anything, anywhere.

In 10 days (as long as there no problems) the 7000 or so final year medical students eagerly awaiting the results, of what for many, is little more than a lottery, will find out their fate for the next two years. What will it be first? Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry, A&E, Paediatrics or something even more obscure. Who knows.

Personally i'm not all that bothered with what I end up with. Most F1 jobs are going to be fairly similar whatever you're doing. My first choice which i'm 90% sure I won't get included the unlikely subject of gynaecology. A week in wednesday will be an interesting day fo' sure.

I understand that those of you not involved in this process you'll have little idea what i'm talking about. I can tell you, its exceptionally important to the 7000 people waiting to find out the reslts of what has been a 2 or 3 month process.

Foundation School Allocations

Well the results are out, and I'm very pleased to announce that I was allocated to my first choice foundation school - (more details coming to The Real Little medic later). The results were not supposed to be out until after 8am but apparently they were out just after midnight.

I'm well pleased to have got my first choice. The second stage is to rank individual programmes (jobs basically). Although I don't yet know the details of this process, it may be that I have to go through all 240+ jobs and put them in order of the ones I'd like or it may just be a case of ranking 20 or so and hope for the best. I assume details of part 2 will surface over the next couple of days.

Hope everyone else got their first choice and good luck with picking your programmes.

UPDATE: - I have to rank all 287 jobs in preference order. That should be fun.

Location Location Location

On Wednesday this week the UKFPO will announce the results of the matching process where final year medical students will find out roughly (within a hundred miles or so) where they will undertake foundation training. I, along with 7000 other final years have been waiting patiently for the results of this lottery, so we can all buy our tickets for part 2.

I went to a meeting today at the NW deanery, mainly to be nosey, but also so that I'm able to answer any questions my colleagues might have about the process. It was an interesting morning, the people in charge were understandably in a slightly awkward position of already knowing a great deal about the results. At least they know about the NW, which doesn't help me a lot. They were very professional in not giving much away, but I suspect its fairly good news nationally, and for those who applied to the NW deanery at least. It was a little uncomfortable going round the table announcing where we had put as our first choice, I was singled out as a traitor, or at least that is how I felt, despite reassurance from the man in charge.

Why we're all bothering I'm not quite sure. Tooke is apparently going to announce tomorrow that foundation training is all wrong, blah, blah, blah. At least that is what I'm told. This is going to be quite a week for the countries junior doctors. Foundation deanery announcements, publication of the Tooke report (although I thought this had already all been published and can't find anything about tomorrow's announcement) and the start of applications for specialty training. I suspect the media will have a luke warm reaction to the weeks events, but will manage to turn the situation round to have yet another go at doctors, or more precisely GPs. The Daily Mail headline this Thursday will be something like this: "Many Junior Doctors Facing Unemployment - GPs to Blame For Not Working Enough Hours" - a preposterously illogical headline, but not beyond the realm of possibility.

As I mentioned earlier, Wednesday is only part 1. Part 2 involves being allocated to a particular hospital trust, then a particular job track. The process for this allocation is going to be different throughout the country, and as yet, I've got no idea how my first choice deanery are going to be doing things. Maybe they'll be kind enough to inform us on Wednesday as the results are announced.

Lets hope that unlike last year, our data is secure. You may or may not remember that last year, the names, addresses, sexual preference, religion and application forms of 7000 final year medical students were accessible on the foundation programme website. This was well before the government lost CDs full of data here there and everywhere. I'm told that this breech of data was malicious and that criminal proceedings are underway. I suppose that is reassuring.

Some of you will have absolutely no idea what this post is about, and its very hard to explain clearly what is going on. Lets just say its quite important (for us at least) and all that remains to be said is good luck to my colleagues who are awaiting their fate, its like Christmas, all over again, but with less wrapping paper.

It is done!

After many minutes staring at the 'submit' button I finally plucked up the courage (after checking everything just once more) to click it and that was it! Not even an "are you sure you wish to submit" With one click it was done, off into cyberspace to be scored by someone who knows nothing about me other than the answers to 7 questions!

9th January is the day we find out our Foundation School allocation - bring it on.

Great Start to the Week!

My last post was about how busy this week was going to be, and I wasn't wrong! Unfortunately I seem to have caught a rather virulent strain of man-flu. My head feels like its in a vice, my sinuses feel like they are being infused with molten lava, my nose is streaming like Niagara falls and my throat feels like its being attacked by an army of miniature samurai! That being said, I feel like shit which makes doing things a real pain in the arse!

Yesterday I had to hand in my elective report;
6am - I got up, showered, dressed and made dam sure I had 2 copies of my elective report and a copy on CD
6:30am - Left the house to drive the 60 miles to the medical school building
7:30am - feeling like shit, and only half way through the journey I made an emergency stop at a motorway services for a crunchie!
8:30am - finally arrived having spent the best part of 2 hours driving and was amazed that I could find a parking space
8:45am - went to computer cluster to check my emails and waste some time before reception opened so I could hand my report in
8:59am - set off on the short walk across the foyer to hand in my report
8:59:30am - am startled by a loud cry of "OHHHHH SHIT!" coming from right in the middle of the foyer
8:59:35am - realise that people are looking my way and that the cry of "OHHH SHIT" came from me. My brain is running a bit behind because of my man-flu
8:59:40am - I've only gone and forgotten my elective supervisor assessment form which also needs to be handed in today!!!! ARGHHHHHHHH! I blame man-flu!
9:00am - Have just about stopped myself from crying in the middle of the foyer and go in to hand in my report.
9:01am - I apologise to the friendly man on the desk for forgetting my form, he has NO idea what I'm talking about and writes me out a receipt for my report.
9:05am - Right, what am I going to do, this form HAS to be in today and is supposed to be in by 12:00 on the dot.
9:10am - Get back to the car, there is only one thing for it, I'll have to drive home and get it.
10:30am - Arrive back home after driving 60 miles back - man-flu is now making me feel even worse! Realise that if I drive back to the medical school I probably won't be able to make the deadline.
10:35am - Phone medical school to ask if I can fax it over as its only a form. Unfortunately the woman I speak to has no idea what-so-ever and isn't very helpful!
10:40am - I decide faxing it is the only thing I can do so I write a letter and email the man in-charge (who is conveniently on holiday today)
11:00am - Get to Staples and pay £2 (cheaper than the £15 it would have cost in petrol) to fax my form over with a request to email me confirmation of receipt
11:30am - Go home and die.

5:00pm - still no confirmation email, great, they've either not got it or haven't bothered to email me back to let me know. God knows what will happen now, will they fail me for being late (even though my report was in time), will it not matter at all? Who knows, one thing is for sure, it won't be simple!

On the plus side, Between dying and 5:00pm I did manage to fill in some of the foundation application form which went live yesterday. I also managed to plan the answers to the sacred 7 questions.

Today my man-flu is even worse, I feel like shit. I need to get better quickly in order to keep up with my busy week.

so much to do, so little time

I knew things were going to be busy when we returned from our trip but busy is probably an understatement!

I have finally finished my elective report, it is pretty good now even if I do say so myself. My blog actually proved useful as rereading some of my posts whilst away helped with the content of my report. It was supposed to be 3500 words but that simply isn't enough so it ended up at 3700 which is still a ridiculously small amount considering everything that happened. I don't think I've done it justice but I've done the best I possibly could have. Much credit must go to missbliss for her help. Now I just have to hand the dam thing in which is going to be a pain in the arse as it has to be handed into the medical school not my hospital. I'll look forward to me 100 mile, each way, commute on Monday.

I thought about putting a copy of my report up on the net but since the university seem to have stepped up their assault on plagiarism it'll have to wait for a while. I wouldn't want to be accused of stealing someone else's report and making up 2 months of my life now would I? If you're desperate to read it then drop me an email.

That's one thing I can cross off on my ever expanding list of things to do. I can also cross off finding a flat as we've found one! Although finding somewhere to live adds about 60 different things to my to-do list. Particularly as its unfurnished so we're going to be sleeping on the floor. IKEA here we come!

My first week back in hospital was both eventful and uneventful, you can read about it here at the real little medic (email me for an invite if you want).

Next week promises to be busier than ever! We're moving into our flat next Saturday, I'm going on a surgical skills course in Edinburgh next Friday and there is the small matter of the foundation application form which I've yet to really study in detail! Expect to here more about that next week (if I get time to blog that is!)

I'm also planning a post about some of the crazy things people have googled only to end up at my blog. At the moment its mostly about the foundation programme application form as I've written about the questions but there have been some gems just recently and I'm sure it would be worth sharing them.

Finally, this is my 100th post, so I'd just like to say a quick thanks to all the readers and commenters out there who make blogging a bit more interesting!

The 7 Questions...

You may or may not have already seen the Foundation Programme 2008 application form, either way, here is my breakdown of the questions.

Question 1
Maximum points available: 5 points Limit: 250 words
List your educational achievements

Hmmm, this is the only question which I have no chance of scoring well on. In the notes that accompany the form it states that the marks are available for other degrees or publications in peer-reviewed journals. Now I have neither, when it comes to academic achievements I'm an above average student, but there isn't much that stands me out from anyone else who is above average academically. I do have a couple of things I could put down, however they've not actually happened yet so they'd be pending achievements. So anyway, I don't like this question much at all.

Question 2
Maximum points available: 8 points Limit: 150 words
Give one example of a non-academic achievement explaining both the significance to you and the relevance to foundation training.

Not a very difficult question most people have at least some kind of non-academic achievements. My problem here will be picking something which fits the question and I'm able to explore the significance to myself and foundation training.

Question 3
Maximum points available: 8 points Limit: 150 words
Describe one example (not necessarily clinical) relevant to your medical training where you have felt personally under pressure and/or challenged. What did you do to manage this and what did you learn from this experience that will be relevant to your foundation training?

I have a couple of potential answers to this question. One is rather controversial, another doesn't look particularly favourable towards me but I could reflect very well on it and the others are just a bit boring so I don't really know.

Question 4
Maximum points available: 8 points Limit: 150 words
Describe one example from your undergraduate medical training of your ability to prioritise tasks and information from any clinical or education area. What was the outcome, what have you learned and how will you apply this to foundation training?

I'm not keen on this question either. Surely the entire medical course is about prioritising tasks and information? It will be hard to pick out something original. The explanation and reflection will be the easier aspect of this question in my opinion.

Question 5
Maximum points available: 8 points Limit: 150 words
Describe one example from your own clinical experience that has increased your understanding of the importance of team working. What was your role and contribution to the team? What have you learned and how will you apply this to foundation training?

I was worried this question would come up but I think I've come up with a good situation now which I should be able to work with to get a decent answer to this question. Maybe I should use PBL! haha

Question 6
Maximum points available: 8 points Limit: 150 words
Describe one example of a recent clinical situation where you demonstrated appropriate professional behaviour. What did you do and what have you learned? How will you apply this to foundation training?

Again I have a potentially controversial idea for an answer to this question. I think brushing up on GMC good practice guidelines will be important for this form and this question in particular.

Question 7
Maximum points available: 10 points Limit: 250 words
Compare and contrast the care pathways you have observed or two different patients with similar clinical problems. To what extent did each pathway take the individual needs of the patient into account? What have you learned from these patients that will be relevant to your foundation training?

From the very little talk I've seen on the application form as yet, this seems to be the question which most people dislike the most. Personally I rather like it, I do think it is a bit of a strange question but I like it because I think I have a good example to use which will make interesting reading, be easy to reflect upon and will hopefully score well.

So, overall I'm fairly happy with the form, it could have been much much worse in my opinion. I don't think the system is a great way of doing things but it was always going to happen this way and you just need to think about how you'll be able to answer the questions. Good luck to anyone applying for foundation posts this year and stay tuned to hear how my application goes.

As One Journey Comes To An End Another One Begins

Returning home brings a mountain of things to sort out, organise and do. One item on the list is a small thing called the foundation programme application!!!!! Yowsers. Probably the most important thing about 5th year (apart from finals but talk of those is henceforth banned.)

I quite enjoy blogging so you'll probably be able to follow my journey as I go about applying for my foundation 1 post, as long as I have enough time. Scary stuff indeed. Of course missbliss will be a valuable resource with her English knowledge to correct my poorly written rubbish.

I've had a brief browse of the net and flick around the blogsphere and I've not seen any mentions of foundation programme 2008 (FP 2008) applications yet which somewhat surprised me (although given that I've not spent much time online due to being on holiday I might just have missed it.)

On the 8th October, the 2008 application form was released to the world of waiting medical students. I've not seen MTAS written anywhere so I'm hoping they've moved away from being called MTAS due the what happened with ST applications.

I don't know what the general consensus about the application is but in my opinion it could have been much worse. There are questions I don't like but mostly I'm quite pleased and hopefully I'll be able to cook up a fairly decent application. I'm not sure whether or not I'm allowed to copy the questions to my blog and go through my opinions on each, but that will have to wait till I've got more time anyway.

There is also a story to come about my academic ranking which I found out by email from a friend whilst I was in the Solomon Islands. All I will say is that I'm fairly pleased with my ranking which should help with my application.

Finally for now, I've written a short post over at the real little medic take a look over there, if you need an invite drop me an email and I'll get back to you (although it might be in a week or so)

If you've seen anything in the blogsphere about the application form or other bloggers applying for FP 2008 please let me know either in a comment or by email to imamedicalstudentgetmeoutofhere[at]hotmail.co.uk.