Home
This site is intended for healthcare professionals
Advertisement
Share
Advertisement
Advertisement
 
 
 

Summary

This on-demand teaching session for medical professionals covers whitespace questions - an important part of applying for the Specialist Foundation Programme (SFP). Through this session, participants will be given tips and taught useful structures in order to craft standout answers to white space questions. There will also be examples from successful SFP trainee experiences to demonstrate how whitespace questions can be used to effectively communicate their suitability as candidates. Furthermore, participants will receive recordings of this session and the previous one on introduction to SFP - a great way to recap and review.

Generated by MedBot

Description

In this talk, Alice and myself, talk through White Space Questions. Context within the SFP application, useful structures, approaches to tackling the WSQs and worked examples. Tips and resources also discussed as well as an extended Q&A.

In this series of talks, Dr Alice Wang and Dr Daniel Richardson, academic foundation doctors based in London, will talk about their experiences and give advice on how to prepare for the Specialised Foundation Programme interviews.

Learning objectives

Learning objectives for this medical audience teaching session on whitespace questions are:

  1. Understand the structure of white space questions and how they may be used in the application process for SFP.

  2. Become aware of common themes in white space questions and how to approach them in the application.

  3. Master the CAMP structure for responding to white space questions about one's background and future goals.

  4. Learn the STAR structure for responding to white space questions about experience, achievements, and team working.

  5. Develop the ability to argue one's own position and explain the reasoning behind one's chosen subject with respect to an unanswered high priority challenge in medicine.

Generated by MedBot

Similar communities

View all

Similar events and on demand videos

Computer generated transcript

Warning!
The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.

okay? I think so. Oh, let me kick it off and then just shall I? I can Yeah. We can introduce ourselves. And then I'm happy to go up to I don't know, like, useful structures. Y S f p. I guess. Then you can do the career plans. May be working this clinic academic and then your example that I can do my examples at the end. Does that work? Use the structures, use the structures. So you're talking about career. So you're going to talk about career plans or me Talk about the plans. I think you would be better suited now. Oh, I don't mind. I'm fine. I can talk through. Okay, fine. So are you talking about often talk about career plans? Yeah. I'll talk a bit about being a clinical academic. Yeah, fine. Cool. Loads of people who have joined that they're watching. 47 of us were just talking about some high. Everyone. We're gonna start in probably two or three minutes time and and Yeah, it's really deceptive. This thing you don't when I'm on the chat, you can't see how many people are. Yeah, there's there's 56 people just listening to us chatting away there. Oh, gosh. Okay. He didn't say anything too radical. Um, I think if you want to grab a really quick cup of tea or a drink or something, then you probably have time. Um and that's people who are watching for your cell phones. Um, uh, um can people let me know if my microphone is better this week? Okay. Also, any questions at any point, Put them in the chat, and we'll answer them at the end. Cool. She'll make a stop. Yeah, Just get back then. You're welcome. Cool. Hey, everybody. Hope you had a good week so far, um, recovering whitespace questions for the first session, which was introduction to SFP. That session was recorded, and there is a recording on medal. So after this session, we'll send links out to both recordings for this session and also last session. So make sure to fill in the feedback and also join our mailing list, and we'll make sure you can get access to all the recordings. So today's session is on whitespace questions. My name is Alice. I'm currently an F one SFP trainee in cardiac arrest and cardiothoracic at Imperial and and two s. So just an overview of today's session. So if we can go into the next night Okay, so we're going to cover what whitespace questions are useful structures that we use. And we were right in our white space questions how to tackle them in terms of structures. Um, some work, for example. So myself and Dan have both picked out an example from when we apply to SFP and we'll work through those and we'll give some tips and tricks as to how to make your SF how to make your white space questions stand out and also some resources at the end that we used and found really useful as always. Any questions put me on the chat and we'll answer them at the end. Cool. So as far as I'm aware of really opened today and so hopefully most of you are thinking of applying to SFP have made a start on your white space questions. So to me they felt like a mini personal statement. Um, they're required by most sceneries. I know that London does not require whitespace questions. They have a word count limit of 250 per question and all of the white space questions already published and on the U. K F P o website. It's a massive word document and has questions that kind of follow, uh, structure in terms of some. Ask about your interest in research some about your team work until you do have to answer all of those questions. The scoring is quite unclear, and we have no idea on how they're scored, how much they impact your SFP application. Um, depending on which generally you apply two. But I think these white space questions are a really good chance for you guys to show off exactly what you've done, what you've learned from your research and how the skills you've gained from the experiences and the research that you've done will make you an ideal SFP candidate. So really, um, sell yourself through these white space questions and make sure they're very memorable to the assessor that reads them. Anything to add that done? No, I don't think so. I think they're quite a good way of just characterizing lots of different aspects of your achievements, things you've done as a student and also perhaps haven't done, um, as part of medical school, but I would be lost in other parts of and sfp application. Um, so they are not just an opportunity to show stuff that is expected, but also an opportunity to try and make yourself stand, stand apart from other people who are applying, um, bringing other strengths that aren't necessarily traditionally associated with medical school or junior document applications. Absolutely great. So the common themes as I was talking about, they're structured into career goals. Um, and this is just a screenshot from sfp from u K f p o. I'm sure you guys have all seen it by now. Um, some questions about experience and your achievements, Um, in terms of your research or if you're applying to teaching and leadership obviously catered towards, um, those topics. So the program interests examples of team working and just general questions. I know this question is A When I read it first, I thought it was very bizarre. Um, so this is the last question on this on the white space questions, which is understanding the nature of dark matter is an example of an unanswered high priority challenge in astrophysics. Please give give an example of your unanswered high priority challenge of medicine and explain the reasons for your choice. So I thought, this is so strange, and I didn't really know what they would get out. And I kind of thought for a long time. What? What do they want me to say? Or what are they hoping for me to say? But I think I mean, I spoke to my seniors, um, or my predecessors, other SFP trainees. And I think the general consensus is that you just have to be able to argue your points. So it doesn't matter as much what you choose or the topic that YouTube if it's like what everybody would consider a high priority challenge. But as long as you're able to stand your ground and, um, give some good evidence and examples to support what you're trying to say, then I think that that is what the assessors are looking for. Um, so I can't precisely remember what I wrote for mine, but because my application was relatively catered towards cardio and him, I chose something in that area and just kind of really stood my ground and argued what I thought. This area of medicine is really important and why we should fund and put more resources into research in this area of medicine. So you just choose something that supports the rest of your application in terms of your research interest and just work around it. I don't think too much of it. And don't get too stressed over. Just try your best. What did you think of this question? Done. Did you have it? I did have this question. I actually controversial. I think this is probably, uh, not stressed, but I think this is possibly the most important differentiator of the white space questions. And the reason for that is that if you think about what you're applying to, if you're applying to an academic foundation program, probably this is the most relevant to. But it's also important for the other kind of, uh, strings of the specialist foundation programs. Being able to think of being able to think of a complex issue, break it down into something that is simple and can be talked about very briefly and could be tested or argued or described, given reasons for arguing for a certain point, is sort of the essence of research in a very general sense. And so, actually, exactly as you said as being able to just pick something, it doesn't need to be crazy, Complicated. But to get a clear structure and argue your point in a way that makes sense with in quite a tight word limit, I think is difficult to do. And I think a strong applicant would score high on this. And this is probably one of the areas that differentiates lots of different applicants. Um, yeah. I also found it very challenging and a bit like What do you want from me? Yeah, I think this question took me the most amount of time in terms of I didn't really know what to write on my laptop. Like, I don't know what type. So I was just thinking for ages. Um, Googling didn't really help. You just have to kind of think of something that you that is relatively unique and that you feel passionately about. That's my take on it at least. Yeah, completely. First. Great. So moving on to write in your right space questions. And these are some examples of structures which we used. Um, most of these are taken from the medical interviews book published by Olivia Picard. I have a picture. We have a picture of that book at the end. In no way are we sponsored by by the authors. But we both got this book and found it really, really useful for sfp preparation. Um, so I do highly recommend. So if you're answering questions around your background or even what your future plans are, um, such as Why do you want to do the SFP? Then you can use the camp structure. So breaking it down so clinically and why do you want to do the SFP? I mean, in terms of clinical, I'll be able to be in both the d. D. H and being a teaching hospital. And there's a clinician that that will help me to develop lots of different kind of skills working acute settings, working in more like community like settings, and so it will help me develop my skills in many different areas. Academic, Obviously, having a four month research block is a massive, um, pro of doing sfp, and it will help me to develop my skills in critical appraisal, reading papers, knowing how to learning how to, um, start a research project perhaps learning how to gain ethical approval getting research grants approved. These are all academic, um, advantages of doing an S f p management wise. You can get involved in undergraduate teaching developing courses like we have, um, to help other other students get into the sfp as well as on a more personal level as well. Um, perhaps you want to go to a certain place because it's closer to home because this is where you studied med school, and you really like the area. So I think there are lots of reasons as to why people choose to do the S f p. And I think if you use this structure, um, I use the structure exactly. Just kind of split everything into these four paragraphs. It was just very clear that I had kind of four areas of why I wanted to do sfp. And I think it makes it very easy read for the assesses as well, in terms of when they ask you to give an example of when you show teamwork of when you demonstrated good communication skills or something around those lines, um, we used the star structure, um and so you first give an overview of what the situation was, what the challenge was. Perhaps you then talk about the task. So what you needed to do and the action, what you did and how that in the end ended up perhaps being a really good result or even a poor result. Personally, I think that if things didn't work out exactly how you'd hoped, um then that's not always a bad, bad thing as long as you're able to reflect on it and say, Well, on hindsight, I do recognize that I could have done this differently perhaps, um, and communicate better with this member of the team. And so, in a way that's made me, um, reflect on my own downside. And I think that I've learned many lessons which can be applied to which can be working my favor as an SFP training. So I think an interview. I actually use these structures as well. And yeah, I I didn't pay myself as being the perfect candidate. But also just being able to recognize your limitations is really important, Um, and being willing to change and to improve, I think a really good, um, attributes of of any doctor and especially if we wanted to research as well as clinical medicine, which is pretty challenging in itself, I would say Avoid list in your achievements. Um, I think the key is to focus on one event and describe what your role was, What you learned, the skills that you developed as a result of whether these events went well or didn't go so well. Um, talk about the challenges that you overcame. And I think the last one is really important to show how this is transferable to be in a really successful SFP trainee. So I think it's one thing saying, Oh, I have really good communication have really good organization skills, for example. But I think if you're able to give evidence for that, So perhaps something around the lines of, like, I'm managed to get really good med school grades alongside being working in this society and doing this volunteering, Um, I was able to do this because I used perhaps like Google calendars, um, and different ways of managing my time. Um, this enabled me to prioritize and yes, split my time up wisely. Um, and these are all attributes that I think these are skills that I've gained as a med student. And we'll also be applicable to when I'm an SFP trainee in terms of balance in both my clinical and academic responsibilities. But for sure do show off sure of what you've done as this is the best opportunity to show the assessors exactly all of your achievements. Done anything to add? No Nothing, huh? Uh, cool. Sure. So one of the questions it does talk about are in the white space questions and I think is something you think about your questions and also because this is it potential interview question and to not have a to not have a well versed, smooth sounding answer, um would be a real shame. Because actually, you're going anyway to apply to something. So So why? Why Specialist foundation program? Well, I think if you're going to write your white space questions, you probably need to be thinking about what the ultimate goal of participating a specialist foundation program is and going back to the slides we showed you back on Monday around the pathway through clinical training, your goal is to ultimately become a clinical academic. So what the sfp will provide you an introduction to the world of academia and research. Or if you've already touched on that medical school to kind of build that foundation, Um, but at the same time, it needs to develop needs to provide opportunities for you to develop clinically, um, and developed other skills and just necessarily research for people who are working at education. So SNP medical education, for instance, developing skills and stimulation, um, and giving feedback and assessment. Also key areas that you can be thinking about. How, how, Why why were you a recipe and how to help develop you and look into the future? You need to be thinking about academic clinical fellowships, whether this could be the beginning of working towards a PhD project, whether there is already some work you've done that could be developed into a PhD and maybe just needs a pilot study or something that could that pilot study be achieved in an S F. P um, and other things to kind of 0.2 is, you know, how did you come to be applying for sfp? So what sparked your interest? What what previous experience have you had so far? What things have you been doing alongside and outside of the medical degree. Other questions. I think if you're applying to lots of So we talked last week about, uh, we talked to Monday about applying to more than one area of application and your and your white space questions. You need to decide whether you want them to be very generic. So if you're applying to to places, so let's think North, Northwest, Northwest, Diener E, for instance, and also Scotland, then you need to write your white space questions in a way that are generic so that it applies to both locations. Perhaps, but if you're only going to apply to one place that had whitespace questions and you'll see this when I show my examples in a few slides time, I talk very specifically about why I want to do sfp, but also why I want to do sfp at that exact penury in that location. And I target my SFP to show that I've done my homework and I've done a bit of reading around, and I know exactly why this is the best for me to be doing, um and then bring it back into the receipt and sfp is an institution investment in you, so they're going to spend time giving you the opportunity to take part in research. But also, you need to show yourself to be an investment to whatever institution you're applying to. If someone gives you an SFP job, what will you do to improve patient care or progress, research or benefit there? Institution? And if you can somehow fit that also into your white space question around, why do you want to a specialist foundation program? Then you're really taking all the boxes, and I think those are the things you need to be thinking about covering in that area. Um, another question or another thing to be thinking about is how well SFP contribute to your career plans. Again, we sort of talked about the structure and you'll be able to see this, in my example. Whitespace questions in a couple of slides that actually keeping to that structure of how well it contribute clinically, how contribute academically. Other opportunity. I mean, management is, I guess, one way of describing it. I also bundled in things like education, other extracurricular things as well, and then also demonstrating your well rounded person and that you thought about this next step in your career in a mature way. So how and the personal reasons are there other reasons outside of medicine that those particular job's were living in that area benefits you and makes you a good fit for the roll? It doesn't make any sense for an institution to offer you a job, even if you take the academic box and you take the clinical box and great on paper. If it's clear that actually you're going to be miserable living there, be doing you a disservice offering you the job and you'll be doing yourself a disservice by applying for the job. So thinking, don't just write about it. But also do please think about that, because I think that's a very important thing to be thinking about what you're writing these questions. So what are the challenges of working as a clinical academics? This is the key whitespace question that also should kind of, I guess, um, it's something that I'm now experiencing myself, Um, and Alice, if if she is not experiencing, it already will experience it soon, so you get reduced clinical experience. You're going to spend one less rotation inside the hospital giving, you know, clinical stuff. So you're going to see less patients than your counterparts. You are on a specialized pathway. You're gonna have less opportunities to do dot So you're gonna have less opportunities to fill your portfolio and to do all the things that you need to pass the foundation program. If you get to do a really cool piece of research, but you then get held back here, that's like that. That doesn't that makes no sense. Yeah, that's that's not benefiting anyone. Definitely benefit you. So you need to think about how how will you go about organizing yourself to to develop the clinical experience and develop as a as a junior doctor? How you be safe, doctor? What things have you done previously in your life that demonstrate that you are capable of being safe, that you have responsibilities, that you're able to manage your time, effectively responsibilities or also manage people? That's another thing that if you have any experience of that, that's really important. So working in, um, volunteering your time in society working, you know, in in part time jobs a long time medical school, those things, if you can draw, pull those experiences in and use them to demonstrate aspects of your personality or aspects of your skills managing people interpersonal skills. Then that's really important. And we'll get you marks. And I think also it's important to have realistic expectations about what you're going to achieve as a specialist foundation program trainee. So to put that So when I applied, I got my job. Then I immediately approached some people back last August about doing some research, and I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna do some research on my F one job and then I'll have a little stuff prime for my you know, if two job and actually, um, the thing that I've definitely learned and realize myself is that doing research alongside a fulltime F one job is crazy. Hard to balance. And to do that and to actually get enough, you know, rest time and down time to not burn out is extremely difficult. And you need to kind of at least show that you thought about that in these questions as well. If you write like, you know, uh, you know I'm gonna run a trial or I'm gonna you know, there's no chance you're gonna be able to do that. The four months in itself is not a huge amount of time to do any sort of huge in depth research and actually to be doing and committing to stuff Before you even started your job as well. It shows that you're not really thought about about how you're going to manage all these things. So address it. Say what steps you're gonna take. How are you gonna balance all of these things and developed to be a safe junior doctor alongside fostering this research, Um, kind of career that you want to build? Same. We're going to show you some of our work. Two examples I'm going to give first. And I was going to show you an example of one of her white space questions. Um, some things to just caveat all of this by first of all, they are previous that are white space questions. So they are the ones to be submitted there. They're not perfect. They're not a work. They're just a word, for example. So there's probably a way of scoring better or doing better, doing these questions better just to give you a flavor of what we did and what we think It was useful. What what we think we must have done that scored well. The other things also say, is that they're quite specific about our experiences. Use them as a jump off point to think about how you should talk about your your experiences or how you should talk about things. But please don't kind of plagiarize them or just copy them over. Um, there's probably not that many people applying to different places. And if you all applying all your white space questions look the same, then that will probably look quite obvious. Same. This is my answer. So why do you want this sfp or why do you want to come and do your specialist foundation program here? I'll let you look through it. I'm not going to read it all allowed. But the things I think I would look at is look at how I've talked about building my clinical experience. So I've talked about clinical rotations, have shown that I've done my homework and I've and I've found out things that aren't necessarily available through the website, so I know what Kato is, and I refer to that which is the Cambridge academic training office. Talk about the, you know, department, the neuroscience team. I talk about some of the, you know, I kind of make reference is two things that you have done a bit of homework, Um, as well around the academic stuff, Um, and I also talked a little bit how I have done some previous teaching stuff, and I I can demonstrate that I've received good feedback for doing that and that. Actually, I I know that there's this teaching roll that's available at Cambridge. And actually, I think that I'm good at supporting education with you. Let me come to Cambridge. I can come and support that program as well. In my second year, the one thing I haven't just looking back is I haven't really addressed, um, personal aspects of my application in this, Um, in this question, I certainly talked about interview and I grew up near Cambridge. So I had some stuff that perhaps I wanted to talk about. And then some of the earlier draft. There was some stuff around living near Cambridge, growing up and having been been to the hospital and been to Cambridge. But that really didn't make the final cut, so I didn't put it in the final one. This is, um this is my response to the question What is your best clinical research achievement and why? Um, and again, you can sort of see, I'm talking about situations. I've worked as a research assistant in the Department of Neurology. I talked specifically about the task and things that I did. So I screen the recruiting patients, perform clinical assessments, and I mentioned that I had a previous degree as well, and I've done had some experience, and I think statistics mentioned somewhere. And I also talked importantly about the result. What's the output? Because if you're you know, as many of you know, have been involved in research, Actually, the thing that most research department are interested in is output. Doing research is obviously important, but funding the actual process of doing research is dependent upon outputs. So being able to demonstrate that you have outputs is extremely important and then reflecting on it. Why is this an important why? Why is this my best research achievement? Um, and I sort of touch on what you know, make it linked to my future career aspirations and things. So this is draft four is 217 words, and I thought just for interest. I would also post a later draft. Um, this is draft 10. You can see it's slightly different and I've also put I also have a quick look and see what things have changed between the draft and hopefully that's large enough that you can see on your screen. But there's you're welcome to take a screenshot and look at this if you want a later time. But basically the things hopefully this shows is that I in the in my in the final draft. I made clear, you know, a few a few small things. So, for instance, saying instead of saying I presented this a national conference, I said I presented this a conference. I've made clear that I presented it at a conference or it's been presented at a conference overseas. So it's in America. Okay, well, that's instantly. It's inception. That's one word change, but certainly looks a little bit better. And that kind of let me show up a little bit. I make more specific, um, statements about, you know, I was working with unwell and delirious patients. I was meeting strict deadlines and bringing, being able to bring in other skills. So time management and stuff, maybe not explicitly saying it, but implicitly but implying I've been doing these things. This final draft is only 215 words. And I think if you were to look at the early draft in this draft, you see that in the latest stuff that I really almost every single word is telling. There's no like loose fatty bits. There's no more things to trim off. It really does need to every single word. If it's if it's not doing something that improves your application, you take that word out and you put something more important in where you put something that makes more sense in, um, because 250 words or 230 words, it's not really much wiggle room. Um, I also took out some other stuff just because it didn't quite fit, and I couldn't word things. Um, I think I you know, I probably 35 words to play with. I wanted to add some more information, but I couldn't add it in a way that makes sense so I just cut it out. I think again, I would also say that less is more if you can make less points. But they make perfect sense that they read very clearly. I think that's probably better than adding one more point in, but they're making the whole thing seem a bit garbled and it doesn't quite all together. Um, you almost wanted to read like you could say it aloud, and it would It would make sense. The people who are marking this and reading this is probably very busy. They have lots of them to look at. So you need to make your points nice and clear. Make yourself stand out. Um, and I don't make people work to find out what you've been doing. Just make it obvious. Um, and, uh, we'll answer more questions at the end. But if you've got any questions about either of these things I've pasted, please do drop them in the chair. Yeah, thanks. So that's That's a really important point, actually, um, do make it to make their life, uh, examine our lives easier. Just make everything very obvious and simple as well. Um, so this is one of my work Examples, um, for the question, What is your single best clinical research achievement paper presentation and why? So I kind of used the star structure. So what? It was so I just outlined that my best achievement is a lab was wet lab project, which I did during my interrelated year. Um, and then show off. Tell them what what output you got from it, because that's important. Um, and again, I kind of explained what I did. The techniques that I learned because these are quite unique for, um for a med student to be doing, um, it's not very common to do these kind of lab experiments. Um, and then I think the most important. But it is always the second half of of the white space question where you talk about what you learned, the skills that you gained. So I gained skills and project design, um, involved in methodology and also a little bit on stats as well. So So you do need to show them what? What your skills that you've learned, um, and that I recognize that research is very challenging and that it starts with many, many tiny steps. But these tiny steps do add up in the end, and then that ultimate aim is to benefit loads and loads of patients. And that is the core reason why we do research to better patient care. And then the last little paragraph is just a reflection and also just put in a cross why? I think that doing this, uh, research projects has made me a stronger candidate for SFP because I've gained many skills in terms of problem solving and data analysis. Um, and obviously these are very important in research. And then I also mentioned some softer skills in terms of good communication and collaborating with different team members. And I kept in regular contact with my project supervisors. Um, so reading final draft and helping to edit. Obviously, I don't know how much of my input as a B S C student really mattered, but I think having that communication and willingness to participate is really important. And again, um, it's really crucial that you guys build good relationships with with previous supervisors and things because they can keep you in the loop with regards to the research and, um, yeah, so that's really important. And finally, just um, just spoke about how, Because I kept in contact with my researcher with my supervisors and wanted to help out more even after my project finished. That shows how I'm very eager to see projects to completion. Um, and to get involved in as much research as possible. I think that ultimately the research, uh, the assessors just want to see that, um, you guys are very passionate about about leadership board or research or teaching or whatever it is that you're applying to and just have those examples to back it up and what skills you have that would make you an ideal candidate. Cool. I think that's all we have. So just a few tips. So definitely start now and said last time that he made 24 draft. I think I made around 12 draft so clearly, um, you put a lot more thought, but I think they definitely take absolutely not. It just means that I have less patients clearly because I just got sick after I got sick of reading, and it just I think more red. It's something I don't know. Actually, I shouldn't say that I was going to say when you read it too much. Um, it also almost come becomes as though it wasn't me. He wrote it because I don't know. Okay, I'll stop talking. Actually, I don't know what I'm saying, but definitely start now and make a list of things that you want to put into each exception. And I think the most important thing is to get a first draft down, if you haven't already. I found it very, very difficult to write the first draft because I thought that nothing was good enough. But it does not matter. You're going to draft it many, many times, and so just get a skeleton down, and that will really help you down the line. Um, make your answers as unique and personal as you can use. Your personal experiences don't, um, just get very general or as president of this and we ran an event which is great, blah, blah, blah give specific examples. May be, um, something a challenge that you overcame. Maybe you got into a conflict with with someone else on the team. But how did you guys conflict? Resolution? Resolve that. And things be specific with the skills that you learned and how this will make you the trainee and definitely get as much feedback as you can from your peers from mentors, colleagues, SFP trainees. I'm sure if you, um there are lots of s a P Chinese out there. If you contact um, any of any people already on the AFP, I'm sure they'll be happy to take a look at the draft. And I think it's equally important to get ask, know medics, family and friends to have a read through as well because, um, it's very important in terms of the grammar and the spelling, and just to make sure that things make sense. Um, so having a range of feedback is really good. Um, I would say Use a variety of structure of experiences. Don't use the same example to try and use a different example for every question and definitely have a clear structure to your answers. Um, make it as easy as you can to read. And it's clear as you can, because that will only, um, make the examiner's kind of happy that it's easy to read. Um, any other tips from you done? Mm, Nothing new, but just awfully regurgitate things. You already said I think one of them, Absolutely. I think one of the most useful things I did was I sent an early draft to someone in my family who's not, uh, not medical at all. And it's particularly is not academic at all. Um, and actually just getting someone to read something that they don't really necessarily understand, and then just be like, you know, this doesn't make any sense at all was really useful to them. Be like Okay, well, you know, if a layperson was to read this, which we don't know, some places might employ lay people to mark these white space questions. You just don't know they're actually making it. So other people who aren't necessarily like a professor of endocrinology or something, making sure just the person off the street could read it and it would make a round. Even then, you understand everything. The actual structure would make sense to be clear. I think it's a really important thing to make sure your white space questions do, and then the other really quick way of making sure you get the first few draft down is if you are friends with someone else who's applying to uh, ordinary or applying to SFP. Then do you know, stop your white face questions and, you know, absolutely tear each other's whitespace questions apart. Like, really? Don't don't be like Oh, yeah, it's great know, make a bit of a pack to be like that. I'm just going to go through it and nothing personal and make sure that the first few draft you Do you really highlight like this? You know, I don't really understand what that means. Change this. This isn't good, because actually, if you if you just get people who are going to look at it and say, Yeah, that's really great, brilliant. That won't help you at all. You really need people to look at it and sort of, to be honest, tear it apart to a degree in order to improve it. And then you want that to happen at least a couple of times before you show it to a consultant or someone so that actually they're seeing much more finished Polish product, and it's more use. It's better use of their time. Um, that's what I That's what I would do. That's what I did, and I would highly recommend um and I think that's probably all the specific things I can think of about Whitespace questions. Um, writing a list of things to put in each section was really useful. That's that was the first thing I did. And then they made putting together the first draft quicker than I think. If you try to just write it freehand and that kind of thoughts go into your head, that's probably enough of me. Waffling. Um, I think we probably got loads of time for questions, but very briefly. These are all the resources we told you about the last time, but important stuff where all of the really key factors will be is in the UK Foundation Program 2023 Applicant Handbook. Um, and I would use that like a Bible for all the key dates and all the things we discussed on Monday. You also have specific scenery applicant guides, the medical interviews, but we've already talked about these are our talks, so hopefully these are useful, helpful. And then there's the clinical medicine also handle the medicine and foundation program handbooks, which, if you don't have, um, the incredible to go through all the medical without even hearing about the cheese and onions, but, um, have a reading them. Have a look at, especially in the emergency section of the clinical, uh, Medicare, Oxford and Clinical Medicine. And start looking over that stuff for interviews. Um, and that's probably enough. Is there anything else you want to say? A chance? No, Nothing to add. You covered everything. Just one final mention about our mentorship scheme. So if you guys weren't if any of you weren't here for the last session, we release Sign up to our mentorship scheme last session. So what it will involve is one SFP current trainee current and past trainee will be matched to two of you. You're applying to the current SFP cycle. Current u k f p O um, cycle. Please make sure that your final year, medical student If not, then, um, please do not apply, and we'll be We've gone to some people that signed up on Monday. We've already allocated most of you to a mentor will be closing sign up to the mentorship scheme tomorrow morning. So if you do want to be at being the chance of being allocated to a mentor, then please make sure to sign up as soon as possible. By tomorrow evening, we'll send an email, um, to everybody, um who both have or have not received a mentor And those of you who have not been allocated mentor. We will aim to run some group interview sessions, um, in late October, and we will send out further details about that then. But those of you who are allocated to mentor already, then you can get in contact with a mentor, any help or questions about whitespace questions. And in due course, when you receive interview, then you can practice mock interview on a 1 to 1 basis those of you that are allocated mentor, then get in contact. And we will aim to match the rest of you up if you haven't signed up already. And we'll let you know outcomes by tomorrow evening. But always, as always, any questions feel free to email us at S f peace of mind. Please dot com. Okay. Word limit. 200. Okay. Yeah. Questions going through. So I guess the other thing to say good luck for your application. You guys were fine. Um, start now. Just just start. Don't put it off just started to get the moment. You started to get much easier. Um, and get in contact with current SFP trainees. I get a text intermittently. I'm always happy to, um, come on discussing to investors. Give advice. Um, and I think that's it. Future Webinars coming up. So webinar three critical appraisal That will be on Monday, the 10th of October. So that will be the next talk will be after the closure of Oreos. So there's plenty of time to just concentrate on things like white space questions, your applications. And then we can talk about how you're going to smash those interviews afterwards. So it's going to be critical appraisal on Monday, the 10th and clinical station on Tuesday. 11th. Um, those are our preliminary dates. If anything changes, we'll make sure to contact you about them and please give us feedback. There was about 100 people in the last talk, and only 18 people left Feedback. It's really useful for us to be able to just provide evidence that we've done this talk and lots of people attended, and it's also useful to hear from as many of you how we can improve these talks um, and what we can do? What could we be doing better next time, but also what we've done Well, and that's just useful to know. So we can include more of that next time as well. The you might be able to see me turn my web cam back on. Um, and I think we can start going through questions. Um, should we go from the top? Yeah. Let's go from the top. Yeah, would be good if you can see through the rest of our plan. Um, so I can make a start. So the recording me answer that question, yes. So, what did you mentioned earlier posted? Link The Amazon linked to that book in the chat. Are you disadvantaged? If your white space questions are generic, so do you mean applying to two different sceneries or do you mean if you're applying to both leadership and research? I'm not sure. But either way, I think that if it is how it was last year when you submit one set of white slave questions for the to the news that you apply to then you should still use specific examples from your own experience from your own research or activities that you've done, Um, but maybe try and cater it towards be having develop skills in both, um, this in leadership and also develop skills and research as well. Perhaps if you're applying to do different sceneries, I've heard conflicting information some people have said, um, try and focus on your white space questions on one greenery I've heard other people have said, um, that you should just make it a little bit more general, I think at the end of the day, just as long as you can back up what you say and show off your pills and what you've learned and how you will be a good SFP training, that is the crux of these white space questions. What do you think, Dan? I completely agree. I think you have to just make a decision yourself, don't you? If you if there's one job you want and you know Oh my God, I want that job more than anything. That's the one job I want really want that one job in that scenery? Then you should make your white space questions directed about that scenery, right? That makes that makes sense. If you think Well, actually, I really like that job there, but also quite like that job there. And I'd like to live there as well, then make them generic. Um, I think so. You know, we can definitely and have done give you help with things like the structure and stuff, But ultimately, you have to make the decision of the job about which jobs you want to apply to you and what you're going to do. And I think you could do either, and you could get a job offer. But it just makes sense as long as when you submitted a white specks question, Do you think that's the best I could have done? They represent me. What more can you ask for that? I think, um, so I think just do what you think is best. I agree. Um, what's the next question? So the next question is, uh, do you need to have previous research or education experience to qualify? What do you think? I mean, I think to qualify as a strong word, I think it's favorable. If you do have previous research or education experience, as you can build on those and use those to back up what you say. Um, so I think most candidates will have some form of experience before hand. But I'm sure you must do. I think during 56 years of med school there are opportunities to get involved in lots of different things. So I have to dig around. I'm sure you can think of something to back up your answers. I definitely know people who got 50 s or FPs with no publications, a couple of presentations and no formal research experience. Um, I personally had experience. You've seen the right questions. I worked as a researcher, but I think that I'm an outlier. I don't think that's a common experience for most students. And definitely Please, don't let that put you off. Um, that being said, if you've never done any research tool ever, that will be more difficult. Competitor has done To talk about your experience is what would be a good candidate. But maybe if you could spin it to say, you know, and I wanna I'm super enthusiastic and I can demonstrate that through these other achievements I have and I'd like to turn all of that motivation and energy into exploring early career research, then you know, that could work in your favor as well. Um, so, yeah. Don't let it stop you for research in Cambridge. Let's scroll down for research in Cambridge. Do you Do you need to answer the education? Uh, training and leadership whitespace question as, um So I applied to research in Cambridge. I did not answer the education, training, leadership whitespace questions because you check that box in the application that you choose that you you have chosen research, and then you fill out the research box. I don't remember in my application if I had a chance to do that, but I didn't, so I can't tell you. I'm sorry. Um, high. If you're planning to apply for both research and medicine, how would you recommend writing your answers? Would you advise focusing on specific research, teaching experience or make it generic for both? These are good questions. Um, should I see what I do first? Yeah, I think so. Actually, what I think is if we were to go back, gone rogue, scrolling back to the slides if we were to talk about something like Why do you want this? Sfp, um like that you know, Or how will this SFP contribute to your career plans or any of these things that, like the camp structure or star structure, there's opportunities to talk about different experiences and to spin them in different ways. You're going to really struggle to make a I think they go back to my previous experience about what you really want. What job do you really want, um, and and tailor your wife's questions around that. But also a good chunk of some of this is just talking about what your what is your previous experience and how is that developed to the person, and why does that make you a good candidate? And actually, I think quite a lot of these things. So your personal attributes your clinical experience of the clinical rotations you want. Those things are generic enough that they apply to a research or a med A job. And then there's, you know, maybe other areas in which you can make it more focused towards med or more focused towards research. What do you think This, yeah, totally agree, Totally agree, should probably speed up a little bit. So what's considered a non academic achievement, You know, society work. A counselor doesn't need to be completely outside of medicine. Um, I think society work is cool. Um, not a definite achievement. Yeah, I think anything that's not really like medicine or strictly like posters that you did during medical. I think you're volunteering. I think for this question, actually, an academic achievement I spoke about, um my what I did at med school in terms of, um, societies and volunteering so it doesn't have to be outside. Medicine can be something society wise. Yeah, there was a I don't know whether it's on this year's whitespace questions, but there was literally a question which was on the front of your eye plan, which is like, Mister Cheeks, Are there any other achievements not included elsewhere in the application that you'd like to talk about or something like that? And I talked about performing commonly at the end of the fringe and running a marathon. Um, just because I thought I'll make it as non medicine as possible, But I think society stuff, Yeah, definitely include that volunteering. And also it doesn't I don't think need to be meds. I don't think it has to be definitely in med school. So if you did something earlier in your life before med school, if you're Post grad student or even, you know, during your levels and stuff, then you could include that as well. There's no there's nothing stopping you from talking about something amazing that you've done earlier in your life just because you weren't doing that while you're in med school. Um, I was going to ask the question, but I double check those people who can log into Oreo is the word limit. 202 50 per question. So you guys are saying 200 so stick with what it says an Oriole. The only reason I wrote 2 50 was because I was looking at the u. K f p o What's this question set like that document on the U. K F. U website and it said here we'll limit counts to 50 but if it says 200 on Oriole, then go with what he says. I would say or double check with you k f p o. But yeah, it's safer to be sorry. Safer to be safer than I can. Yeah, and also just get first draft, get worried about your word count. Once you've got a first draft down, get your first draft down 50 words. That's probably a sentence and a half. So I would just get your first draft and then maybe a month for 200 if it turns out to be 2 50 you've got a few sentences to play with. I was wondering if anyone is applying to Yorkshire here because there's a different way of doing things, so I'm not sure what to do on your e o. I'm sorry. We also probably can't help you, either. I don't know if anyone is applying, um, if you, um So we talked about this on Monday about we're going to try and build some sort of catchall for frequency frequently ask questions. If you could send a screenshot person to answer that question to sfp at mind the black dot com or or just a bit of a summary of how it's different. We can try and start Colace these things, and then we can circulate the frequency as frequently. Ask questions to try and clarify some of these things. I think that's the only advice I can give. Yeah, and also always any questions. Do you refer to the dean a redo email that Donnelly directly? I'm sure they'll be able to help, Um, also when adding the presentation task that says there's a character limit, it cuts off my title. Is this normal? I guess so, Yeah. I think the thing you could do is right in the beginning of your title. Then delete the middle of it and put dot, dot, dot and just put down at the end of your title and put it in quotation marks. It's clear that it's not the full title if it's very careful. Yeah, it depends how long your titles on. I've never never been smart enough to do a research project. That particularly title so it's not could be post the mentorship link here. I think we've already done that. Where does the recording get uploaded to the recording to get loaded onto the medal website and you should be able to look back on to look back on them through searching through metal on the mindedly page? The other way we will get them uploaded is you'll be able to see them on mind the bleep dot com forward slash sfp. There will be a playlist of previous talks about a little walk from this year and the two talks from last year as well. Yeah. Um, if you're applying to London and another Diener E, can you tell your white space questions completely to the other Diener E? Because London doesn't look at white space questions? Yes, that's exactly what we both did when you write about the jobs. What do you mean? What do you write about the the rotation of the research you're interested in so you can do both things. So if we went back to the the camp format so you can talk about clinical stuff I knew. So when you apply for the job, you're going to be applying to, you know, applying. So we talked about Monday. You're going to apply to a region to work, and then you're going to drink a lot of jobs. Think about the actual clinical rotations you're going to do. Your academic block is 1/6 of the of your time over the two years of foundation program. If you really like your academic block, but you hate to of the rotation you're going to do. You're going to spend twice as much time doing stuff you don't enjoy, then the thing you do enjoy, but also if there's jobs that you you really want to do, and you're like, Oh, my gosh, I really want to do that because that will develop me, um, clinically in a way that makes me a better candidate for my future career. So, for instance, I have, uh, at the moment I'm on neurology and I'm also on stroke, so that's perfect for someone who wants to apply to neurology. Neurosurgery. I applied knowing that that job clinically develop me and you can talk about your white space questions. It shows you've done your homework and done some reading around and do all the SNPs include both large teaching hospitals and district general hospitals. There's a real mix between the two. Some places you spend a year in the District General Hospital and a year in a big hospital. My current job. I am in a tertiary hospital for two years, so I've never worked in the District General Hospital in my in my lab. Uh, where's Alice? You work in the General Hospital currently? Absolutely. It's a slightly different flavor. Yeah, so do you just have a look at what the hospitals are? And the only reason I said that was because when I realized that was the structure of how the AFP was structured one year D. H. One, you're teaching hospital. I like that. So I just mentioned that. But obviously do your research and make sure you know exactly what's where you'll be training and what rotation should be doing. Um, what counts as non academic achievements be anything strictly not strictly medical school curriculum? Not strictly research, teaching, mentoring society. I think we probably address that. Hopefully how would you How would you answer the question? What is your single best clinical achievement and why? If you don't really have any of them? Well, I'm sure you do. That's the thing is you definitely do. You just need to sit down and think about it. And if you don't you know, no one's expecting. There will annoyingly be candidates who are like, Well, my biggest achievement is that I essentially cured this entire disease My second year of medical school, I wasn't one of those people. I don't think you are either Alice and most people aren't. So don't worry if you're having to sit there and think, What have I actually done for the last few years? That is a note. But the secret is that so long as you've done literally anything, you can spin it in a way to show that it's really important. And then you just write about that. Um, does that seem fair? Absolutely. Always, always be very clear as to what you've learned from it, how you've reflected and what you've taken away. I think that's really important as well. Um, someone has written some advice about applying for Yorkshire. So you're right. You're right. So questions achievements in another link that that general sent you taking that's really useful. Um, fine. Okay. And I think that is, um I think that's everything. Um, so hopefully that is really useful. If there's any other questions, please send them in. Now, um, someone is. There is a flexibility to swap jobs if you experience a specialty and foundation. But the academic job doesn't have this rotation. I actually have no idea about this done. I do have an idea. So you can so in some in, certainly in London you can do this in other countries. I don't know how much you have very densely populating. There's lots of lots of hospitals. It's very easy to swap rotations in somewhere where you know different hospitals might be hundreds of miles apart from each other or certainly tens of miles. It's going to be less easy to do. But, yes, you can apply to swap jobs between people in your foundation program. What I would do, though, is I would apply for jobs that you want that don't require any swamping around if you're applying for a job thinking, I'm gonna do this job. But in order to do it, I want to swap my second rotation of F one and my third. Just don't do that. That's going to make, really that's gonna make your life stressful and complicated. I would just avoid doing that. Um, so it's possible, but I'm I would recommend against it. Um, and also swapping jobs would require someone else to want the job you want, which might not be the case. So don't don't rely on other people, um, want jobs. Um, more information will be given about stuff like that. Once you start as an F one. Usually, how would you answer two questions? What? Your specific reasons, uh, for applying to special experience program and please explain your rationale of your choice of programs both seem to overlap. Well, um, I think they probably do overlap to a degree, but you need to think about how you're going to answer these questions. Um, Alice said, use different examples and different answers. So this is if they overlap. But you've got lots of experience is maybe too much to answer. One question that definitely means in your favor. Um, but I think also talking about your rationale for your choice of programs that, to me reads more like specific clinical rotations and things and drawing in your future career aspirations. Whereas what are your specific reasons for applying for special experience? Program reads to me. More like Tell me about what academic research you want to do. Or what do you want to do in a more general sense across your specialist foundation program? Um, that would be my advice, but obviously there are lots of different ways to answer these questions. Um, I think as long as you use the structures we've talked about or structures close to that and make your answers nice and clear. You probably can't go wrong. Yeah, that's all the questions. Yeah, we've answered them all. Um, as okay. Very last one. This is the absolute last one. Do they try hard to match people up with a specialty? They're interesting for the academic research post. Or is it quite randomized? So it depends where you're applying to butt. In London, you rank the jobs that you're most interested and depending on your short list plus interview plus diesel or whatever they look at to give people to allocate people jobs. If your top scorer, then obviously we'll get your first job preference, etcetera, etcetera. Um, I don't think it's randomized as such. You can preference your jobs, so I mean, I would not. I would not be able to do dance jobs, so I definitely would not. Preference that, And vice versa as well. Yeah, I'm rubbish. Uh, anything below the neck, uh, rubbish can do it. Uh, be a nightmare. Um, I'm not joking. Um, I yeah, it's It's by your school, so just score the best and you'll get the job you want uh, but actually, something that is important to say. Some jobs, um, in some different areas do seem to give more flexibility over things. So I know someone who did A For instance, if ST Georges still do it, there are specialist Foundation program places at Georgia's, which are general practice, um, themed Special Special Foundation programs. But actually lots of people who do those come in with a different flavor of what they want to do. So my friend had plastic surgery, for instance, and they were able to do that in sort of like a they were able to kind of bend this theme into something they wanted to do, so it benefits. So they got to do. They did some research, but also it was applicable to the future career choice. So if you are successful in getting an SFP job, but it's not exactly the exact job you want, then I wouldn't worry about that too much. There's definitely room and space to juggle things around informally, if not formally. Cool, I think. Let's stop there. Um, please, if you haven't, please do feel the feedback in. Thank you so much. People who have failed on the feedback from those of feedback this time. Um, and we'll see you guys in October for the next talks. Anything you want to say, Alice? No. Just best of luck for the applications. Um, I'm sure you guys will all be fine. Make sure to get just regularly, save an oriole and then, um, submit as well. So good luck, and hopefully see you all in October by fine.