Thinking ahead - Foundation years

[clemette]

Feeling very naive today and exhausted after going through an OFSTED, and thought someone here could explain something to me in basic terms.
Where do you do your F1/F2 years?

[Spencer Wells]

Wherever you like. It's a national programme and you can apply to any job in any part of the UK.

[clemette]

Thank you. How cut-throat is the application process? Do most people at Nottingham apply to Trent region? Do you know how many are successful?

Sorry for all of the questions - I am having a pre-course wobble...

[clemette]

Sorry - I see you are at UCL so probably won't know much about the Nottingham situation...

[Spencer Wells]

You're right, I know little about Notts, but nationally about 90-95% of a med school's graduates chose to stay in the area that they trained.

For the last 3 years there have been more jobs available in Trent then there have been applicants (237 applicants for 283 jobs last year).

The applicant has to rank every foundation school in the country in order of preference. They fill in an application form, and it is marked by the first choice. The applicants are then allocated a foundation school based on score - the higher your score, and the fewer the applicants to the area, the more likely you are to get one of your first choices. You then rank all the jobs within that foundation school and the allocation process happens all over again.

The application form is marked out of 100, with a maximum of 40 points given for you academic standing within your med school's year (40 for top quartile, 38 for next quartile, 36 for the next and 34 for the bottom quartile). You then can get extra points for intercalated/prior degrees, publications, presentations and posters. Note here that the nottingham intercalated degree is worth less than other med school's intercalated degrees (scores a maximum of 1 point out of 5) because it does not lengthen the course (i.e. you get BMedSci and MBChB in 5 years, not 6).
The other available marks come from 6 or 7 white space questions that you fill in. These questions ask you to relate experiences where you've had to act with professional integrity, or compare patient care pathways and other such twoddle crafted by the educationalists and is generally disliked by applicants.

Please do bear in mind however that everything will have changed by the time you come to applying for jobs. The GMC is thinking about bringing in a national exam, and making the job application form a thing that is sat under exam conditions and these ideas have no small amount of support within the establishment.

[clemette]

Thank you so much for that.
Good luck with the rest of your exams.
Sam

[Dangbh]

Also, if you have kids at school in the area you trained, then you automatically get a job in that Deanery, if you want it - you can still apply elsewhere if you like. That's as it stands now, of course.

[clemette]

That's fantastic - thank you!

[Emzeebubs]

this year...there was a pretty much 50:50 split of those from notts medschool leaving the deanery and those staying within trent.

However, trent is pretty much always undersubscribed so if you put trent down as first choice, you'll get it (at the moment anyway!). Infact, I know people who didn't put it down as 1st choice but didnt get into their 1st choice school....so ended up back in trent anyway!

Take home message - if you want a foundation job in trent, you will get one!

[clemette]

Thank you. Now I am going to reveal my naiviety as I haven't looked too far into the future (all seems a long way away).
But in terms of a medical career, how likely is it that you never have to move geographical areas??