F1/F2 and family life

[tinsel]

hi everyone, i have a few questions/concerns about life after med school with a young family. I'm presently in my early years of a med degree but i'd like some advice if anyone can help. When i graduate i hope to be able to live at home (partner/kids) and not have to move to another city.

Am i correct in thinking that as things stand at present the F1 year will be under the jurisdiction of my med school and thus i will be able to stay locally (or have a reasonable commute). What happens subsequently for F2? will i then be in national competition?

Is there anyway of guaranteeing to stay local? Is family commitment considered? What sort of things can be done to improve my chances of getting a job nearby? I was a grad applicant with a PhD and i have very good publications-will they help in terms of getting jobs?

I am dedicated to medicine but i am also very dedicated to my partner and family and there is no way that i can contemplate sacrificing my families hapiness. So the sooner i can think about things that might make it easier for me to stay put the better.

Any help/advice is appreciated. Thanks.

[addy1]

Hi

F1 is a competetive process, you can apply anywhere, not just near your medical school. However if you have school age children then this is one of the only reasons that people are allowed to choose where they go without entering competitive process. Children lower than school age are considered "portable" (lovely terminology!).

Do not be too concerned, 93% (I think?) got their first choice foundation school this year, with most that did not get their first choice having applied to London (particularly North West Thames). If you are outside London and things stay as they are you should be fine.
F2 is then normally done within the same foundation school as you did F1 with very few exceptions.

The current system is based on points - you will get max 5 out of 85 points for your PhD, publications, and degrees - in total.
This may seem unfair but that is the current system. The rest of the points are based on your position within your med school in terms of results, and some creative writing where you answer some artbitary questions and get given an arbitary score!

Do not worry too much, it may help if you let us know where you are at med school as the competitiveness of different areas varies quite a lot.

[eternal student]

Hi there.
I was in a similar position to you and will be starting F1 in August. As a parent I was given preference for the deanery, but that can be quite a wide geographical area - it certainly is for me, and I wasn't prepared to risk not getting a job at one of the more local hospitals as I knew I wouldn't be able to commute easily with 2 young children. Therefore to improve my chances, I put my background and PhD to use and secured an academic F2 post (with an attached F1 rotation) at my local teaching hospital. These jobs are recruited for in the autumn by CV and interview, so you can actually reliably choose which hospital you want to be in. A word of caution though. The Tooke report may well see the end of F2 so academic jobs may no longer be applied for whilst still at med school. If that proves to be the case then the next best thing would be to do well in exams. If you have a high ranking it will certainly improve you chances of getting matched to the job you want. Having said that, happily most of my final year seem to have secured the posts they wanted, regardless of their ranking!
Good luck with everything.

[tinsel]

Thanks for your replies. I feel more reassured about it. I'm not in london and it's a relief to hear that so many students got their first choices.
I doubt i can compete for the top quartile of the year but i shall certainly try, hopefully getting into top half of year and that should help later on.
When i graduate one child will have reached the 'unportable' school age and it's good to know that is considered.

Regarding reasearch positions, is the F2 position you secured in the same field as your PhD? It is something i have been thinking about but the only positions i have seen available in my Deanery are in very different areas of science and if i were to continue research i think it would need to be along similar lines to my PhD. To be honest i'm very undecided about going back to the lab. I do miss science but i'm not sure i want to teach, so maybe the post would be wasted on me. Also what worries me about it is that one rotation is lab based and i feel as though i may miss valuble experience/patient contact. I am not naturally as 'brainy' as many of my peers, i do have to work hard and feel that the more experience i get then the better equipped i'll be. Perhaps my concerns are unwarranted?

Again, thanks for your replies. Initially i was terrified about combining parenting with med school as i got many different oppinions (sadly many discouraging). But although it may not be ideal, it seems to be more than manageable.

[pookymum]

Thanks Tinsel for asking these questions - they are exactly the ones that are going through my head as I embark on my GEP this Sept. The problem is that I'm going to be Kings which is obviously going to make things a lot harder. I also have a Ph.D so thanks for the heads up on the academic posts although I daresay everything will be a lot different in 4 years.
Both my kids will be unportable so I'm glad to hear that is taken into account.
One question I wanted to ask was how easy it is to do F1/F2 part time? Is doing it over 3 years possible?
Thanks
Seeta

[Tangliss]

Ditto pookymum! Both my kids will also be unportable (what a term sounds like a blooming TV) and I'm glad that med schools take this into account. I was also worred about CP1 next year, but I gather family cicumstances will also be taken into account when placing students during their clinical years.

[eternal student]

Is this "unportable child" a new concept? I only ask as when I applied last year, having children gave you preference to choose your deanery, but had no influence on which hospital you actually ended up in within that geographical area. If it has changed that can only be for the better.

I answer to Tinsel, the F2 post is in a similar area. I have experience in regenerative medicine - differentiating cells in culture with a view, ultimately to treat organ failure. I will be working in a lab for 4 months in this field. However it will be 4 days a week in the lab, with one day on take, so clinical skills shouldn't suffer too much. I am not much interested in formal teaching and that isn't part of this academic post. However, I know they are planning to have an F2 in medical education next year, for people with this interest. I haven't missed the lab that much, either, but I think variety is a good thing in clinical medicine. I have seen lots of senior docs worn down by the constant routine of ward rounds and clinics, so it's nice to have another outlet, even if its just for 1 or 2 days a week.

[addy1]

The idea of children being portable only relates to foundation schools. You cannot choose the hospital on this basis. However most people I know got their first choice job, let alone hospital, within the foundation school this year so it isn't too much of a problem if you need to be in a specific area within a foundation school.

Any other reasons, ie partners, mortgages, mean nothing in terms of getting your choice of foundation school. Even with a terminally ill member of the family, you have to be the PRIMARY carer! Which seems pretty strict criteria to me, but i suppose it could be open to abuse if you said you needed to be in London to look after great aunt mildred whom you had never actually met.

[Kim leanne]

How do you find out what your nearest foundation school is/what deanery you're in. I'm currently studying in London, but live in St Albans, Herts. This means i am travelling nearly 2 hours each way! It's driving me crazy commuting and am hoping in my FY1 and 2 years i won't have to go so far.

[addy1]

Herts is a bit of an awkward one, I know that cos I am originally from there too.

It is on the borders of North Central Thames, North West Thames, Oxford and Eastern.

However Eastern also covers East Anglia!

Look at the UKFPO website (www.thefoundationprogramme.nhs.uk)
it has details of foundation schools on there.

North central and north west were massivley oversubscribed this year.