Interview #2
Well, I had my second interview for Specialist Training (ST) applications this Wednesday gone (under the auspices of Round 1B). This time the setting was almost as for from the North and Newcastle as you could get - Plymouth and the South-West Pensinsula Deanery. The interview was at the fairly new Plymouth Radiology Academy, which for some reason is set in a business park. Fortunately, there's also a hotel in the same business park, so it meant finding accommodation was that much easier.
Having had a total of 23 applications at the start of Round 1 for Ophthalmology ST Year 1 (OST1), Peninsula originally only interviewed 8 candidates (unfortunately, I wasn't one), of whom 4 had placed it as 1st choice. Imagine my surprise when I arrived on Wednesday morning to find only 2 other people there to be interviewed - out of a possible maximum of 15! This means that there are 11 people going for 2 jobs, and that somewhere between 3 to 11 of us have placed Peninsula in the Number 1 slot.
The interview had 3 stations. Station 1 was split into 2 parts. 12 minutes to read a paper (on intravitreal triamcinolone for macular edema) and critically appraise it, and prepare a flip-chart summary presentation. The second part was 5 minutes to present your findings, then a further 5 minutes to be asked questions.
Station 2 covered my portfolio (taken from us when we arrived) and general questions covering standard topics such as clinical governance, research, audit...etc...This was 10 minutes.
Station 3 consisted of 2 ophthalmic scenarios over 10 minutes:
1) Patient with an acutely red, painful eye.
2) Telling a patient they had optic neuritis, and dealing with the question of MS.
All in all, I came out of this interview feeling that things had at least gone ok, compared to my interview in Newcastle, where I felt I had not done as well - especially when they sprung ophthalmic-style suturing on us, something I thought was unfair as anyone who hadn't been in an ophthalmic training post was not allowed to do the Royal College of Ophthalmologys' (RCOphth) Microsurgical Skills Course and would therefore find it hard, even if you were told that only your "general dexterity" was going to be looked at. It's a biased test.
So now what? Well, like many of my other colleagues, I'll now wait for sometime in June when the results should be released. If I'm lucky enough to have scraped one of the 55 highly sought after OST1 posts in the UK, then I can relax, secure in the knowledge my training is finally available all the way to completion. Otherwise, along with 1000's (around 12,000) of other doctors, I'm going to have to leave the UK for work abroad, with the knowledge I'll essentially never be able to return to work in the UK training system again - At least, not in a training post (and if i'd wanted a non-training post in the first place I might as well have applied for it now, but I didn't go to medical school in the UK to be shunted into a dead end job, possibly even in a speciality I didn't want).
Having had a total of 23 applications at the start of Round 1 for Ophthalmology ST Year 1 (OST1), Peninsula originally only interviewed 8 candidates (unfortunately, I wasn't one), of whom 4 had placed it as 1st choice. Imagine my surprise when I arrived on Wednesday morning to find only 2 other people there to be interviewed - out of a possible maximum of 15! This means that there are 11 people going for 2 jobs, and that somewhere between 3 to 11 of us have placed Peninsula in the Number 1 slot.
The interview had 3 stations. Station 1 was split into 2 parts. 12 minutes to read a paper (on intravitreal triamcinolone for macular edema) and critically appraise it, and prepare a flip-chart summary presentation. The second part was 5 minutes to present your findings, then a further 5 minutes to be asked questions.
Station 2 covered my portfolio (taken from us when we arrived) and general questions covering standard topics such as clinical governance, research, audit...etc...This was 10 minutes.
Station 3 consisted of 2 ophthalmic scenarios over 10 minutes:
1) Patient with an acutely red, painful eye.
2) Telling a patient they had optic neuritis, and dealing with the question of MS.
All in all, I came out of this interview feeling that things had at least gone ok, compared to my interview in Newcastle, where I felt I had not done as well - especially when they sprung ophthalmic-style suturing on us, something I thought was unfair as anyone who hadn't been in an ophthalmic training post was not allowed to do the Royal College of Ophthalmologys' (RCOphth) Microsurgical Skills Course and would therefore find it hard, even if you were told that only your "general dexterity" was going to be looked at. It's a biased test.
So now what? Well, like many of my other colleagues, I'll now wait for sometime in June when the results should be released. If I'm lucky enough to have scraped one of the 55 highly sought after OST1 posts in the UK, then I can relax, secure in the knowledge my training is finally available all the way to completion. Otherwise, along with 1000's (around 12,000) of other doctors, I'm going to have to leave the UK for work abroad, with the knowledge I'll essentially never be able to return to work in the UK training system again - At least, not in a training post (and if i'd wanted a non-training post in the first place I might as well have applied for it now, but I didn't go to medical school in the UK to be shunted into a dead end job, possibly even in a speciality I didn't want).
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