MDAP is no more!

[rjm]

Interestingly for my year in Southampton, the teaching hospital was not that competitive to get a job at and the smaller DGH's were more competitive. Alot of people want a quiet life when it comes to F1.

[DrPie]

interesting.....

[ant1076]

Interestingly for my year in Southampton, the teaching hospital was not that competitive to get a job at and the smaller DGH's were more competitive. Alot of people want a quiet life when it comes to F1.

In my year, teaching hospital jobs were very competitive to get. Because MDAP allowed a total of 40 tracks, you didn't have anything to lose by putting a few teaching hospital choices down first. I only know a handful of people who put down a DGH as their first choice.

[rjm]

Maybe it is just Southampton people then. I think as a whole the students there are less competitive.
Plus we did it slightly differently by only applying to the hospital and not a certain job. So putting the teaching hospital down as my first choice gave me about a 1 in 5 chance of getting it as there are 40 jobs there out of the 200 job deanery. Still, most people I know applied to other hospitals, and some people who will be working at the teaching hospital got it as their 3rd or lower choice (out of a total of 11 hospitals)

[ant1076]

Maybe it is just Southampton people then. I think as a whole the students there are less competitive.
Plus we did it slightly differently by only applying to the hospital and not a certain job. So putting the teaching hospital down as my first choice gave me about a 1 in 5 chance of getting it as there are 40 jobs there out of the 200 job deanery. Still, most people I know applied to other hospitals, and some people who will be working at the teaching hospital got it as their 3rd or lower choice (out of a total of 11 hospitals)

Yeah, in our application, we could apply to all the Teaching Hospital jobs (all 85+ of them) using only 20 or so choices.

Glad that's over...

You looking forward to next Tuesday? We get coffee and croissants in the morning

[Face]

Ahoy there Dr.RJM

We applied to specific jobs in SETFS. However, I noticed with my friends a distinct lack of applications to teaching hospitals. I'd rather still have my marbles at the end of the foundation program.

[DamianUK]

Well as the new system is universal in england now no one will get the oppertunity to choose in the way you did rjm.

Same at Warwick the teaching hospital was by far and away the most popular choice in the area, then teaching hospitals just outside then the DGH locally.

Damian

[pretoria]

Pretoria i hope that was a tounge in cheek comment.

The "kudos" they are talking about is from an employment prospect point of view not "hey i work in a teaching hospital.. want go for dinner".

Rightly or wringly it seems that in furthur training applications working in a large teaching hospital seems to imply that your better trained/ a better student than some other hospitals.

Don't wind people up with silly comments like that.... the fact that clinicians are being squeezed out of influential positions is a major reason for many problems currently seen in the NHS.


Damian

I was being quite serious, and I was also well aware of the 'kudos' to which you referred. People responsible for recruitment should not be making assumptions - they should be looking for hard evidence. I used to work in the public sector, where incompetent recruiters assumed - quite incorrectly - that private sector experience somehow meant you were automatically better. As a result they hired several very unsuitable people. As we agree, teaching hospital experience in the foundation programme does not make you a better doctor per se, therefore anyone labouring under that assumption should not be involved in recruitment.

[DamianUK]

Indeed i feel that only clinicians should be involved in recruitment however the government in their wisdom have decied to appoint 1 layperson and 1 non-doctor (usually it seems someone other than a nurse).

Pretoria people have to make assumptions, it has to be assumed that your telling the truth on your application, it has to be assumed that the clubs/ socioetys you formed or were a member of actually mean anything, that the good grades you got were not as a result of luck but a broad knowledge base.

As we have gotten rid of the interview stage then you need some way of differentiation as it seems the schools are keen on turning out identikit students...i can see why they would think that a teaching hospital where they are using the lastest tech, the best doctors as teachers and have the ability to allow more oppertunities would give the impression of making a more suitable doctor.

In reality at a DGH you may well be worked off your feet (from the on calls i have done the DGH here is a lot harder than the teaching hospital) have to take on more responsibility and generally come out knowgin more as you don't have the support to turn to someone every 5 minutes...

However here its well known that if you worked in the DGH at the end of your first year you wuold be well ahead of the same people frmo the same year in the teaching hospital....if your looking at people from outside your area then i would say assumptions have to be made.

Damian

P.s. you guys start on tuesday? here the new guys start on weds with 2 days of induction and the old guys start the new jobs on weds... going to be chaos on the wards with no house officers.