Section 6: Requirements To Get Into Training (Person Specification)
- Academic Excellence- Prizes, distinctions, honours etc
- Evidence of commitment to speciality and academia e.g. published in subject, time spent doing extra research (see above)
- Publications
- Previous research experience
- Achievement of usual clinical competencies relevant to entry level
Below is an example of 2 ACF person specifications for academic clinical fellowships at CT1 level and ST3 respectively to give you an idea
http://www.oxforddeanery.nhs.uk/pdf/2016-PS-Haematology-ST3-1.0.pdf
Section 7: Important CV/Portfolio Perks (How To Achieve Them)
- Prizes and distinctions- if you haven’t got these from university then look about for post graduate ones. For example, the Royal College of Physicians have lots of prizes for essays, audits and “interesting” case presentations. Not many people have heard of them and so you have a decent chance of winning a “national” prize and boosting your CV. Other Royal colleges and speciality societies will also offer similar prizes.
- Publications:
- The form and assessment puts different scores on your author position i.e first author is best versus 5th. That means being a first author of an article in the “International Journal of Foot Surgery” which is peer reviewed may get you more marks than being 9th author in a big study published in Nature, at least at initial scoring. It’s great getting a paper in a high impact journal but that takes years and years to achieve and most people you are competing with won’t have that either. So boost the numbers and make yourself first author.
- Ask your supervisor if you can help out in other projects which are nearing completion and maybe get your name on a paper that way (though you may not be first author).
- One of the easiest ways to get publications is to write reviews (and if on the subject you wish to study even better) and submit to any journal. It has the added enefit of making you an “expert” in that particular field and will encourage you to do background reading.
- Although not ideal- letters to the editor, case reports also help you boost your publication numbers.
- Research experience: this is essential and try and make it relevant to your proposed project. Doesn’t have to be in the lab- it is possible to do “dry” projects. This usually involves trawling through databases and doing retrospective analyses. Database work is great because you can do it at home and in your spare time in some cases. Can generate that preliminary data you need and also demonstrates commitment. Failing that, use your annual leave, career breaks to do it.
