24 January 2011
Sonal's Web Diary
After my week of holiday and collecting results it was time to prepare for my upcoming interview for the Foundation Programme.
The system for the UKFPO application is such: initially the candidate fills out a ‘white paper form’ which consists of questions asking about the candidates clinical, academic and non-academic experiences. All the questions have a common link of how these experiences will make one a better foundation doctor. The next step is to rank all the deaneries in the United Kingdom (including Ireland and Scotland) in order of where one would like to work. The candidate is then matched to a deanery depending upon their application score and which deanery the candidate applied to.
Once the candidate has been matched to a locality the system changes. Some deaneries interview their candidates while others do not. Yorkshire and Humber is one of the deaneries which interviews their candidates. The interviews were held over one week and were similar in style to an OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination). The interview consisted of 3 stations which changed on a daily basis. The principles of the stations remained the same, testing basic clinical knowledge and the principles of being a foundation doctor.
I was not very sure about how to prepare for this interview so I decided to skim through the Foundation Doctor Handbook and the GMC (General Medical Council) Good Practice guidance which all doctors should adhere to gain further insight into the system.
After my interview I proceeded to rank jobs in my order of preference. A score cumulative of the application and interview (for Yorkshire and Humber) will be used to in deciding which candidate matches to which job, similar to how the deanery is matched initially.
The results of all candidates who applied, not just to Yorkshire and Humber, but nationwide, will be released on February 15th 2011. Good luck to all candidates and hope we all got our top choices!