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So, um hello everyone. I'm Isabel. I'm one of the events and team members at WP MN. I'll let our lovely speakers um, introduce themselves just to remind you all if you've got questions, put them in the chart and we'll go through them at the end and there'll be a feedback form to get your attendance certificate. So I'll hand over to Jasmine. Hello everyone. Um, I'm Jasmine. Um I did F one and F two with Izzy and we both um applied this year to CST and I've just started our CST jobs a month ago. Hi, I'm Izzy. Similar story. Um We all went to go on F one and went to the CST. Great, great. You can hear us, er, application process this time last year called Fresh Trauma in our minds. We ready to um, tell you about, you wanna share the slides and say no. Mm. Will people write questions as we go? Do you want us to answer them as we go? Is he? Yeah, I think if you want to or we can just do them at the end. I'm happier either way. Maybe if it's a question relevant to the section you're doing, then we can ask it. But if it's not, then we'll just do at the end. Ok. Sounds good. All right, let's look. Bye. So, um, just a disclaimer at the start that we have been through this application process once. So we are by no means claiming to be experts, not affiliated with um the J CST or R CS England or anything like that. We just have a bit of experience of having gone through it and um I sat down and thought about what we might have wanted to know if we were in um your guys' position about to start the process. So what will we cover this evening? So we're gonna just look a little bit about the uh application overview, um what the different steps are and cover the timeline of this process. Um And then um go a little bit through how the kind of logistics of that actually work. Um the portfolio, uploading your evidence and the self assessment criteria and the scoring of that. Um And then we'll touch upon M sra interview and just finish off with a short bit about ranking jobs if it does come to that. So just hand over to Jasmine. Mhm. Um So, yeah, the core surgical training is essentially you'll, you'll be applying for a two year job. Um They have recently, I think in the last few years, most of the CST jobs are now themed. So the aim is that you spend kind of 18 um 18 months ish in a specialty of your choice. Um for example, general surgery themed urology themed plastics themed. Um and then with the aim to then finishing CT one and CT two and applying onto ST three higher surgical training next slide. OK. So we didn't have the application timeline for this year because I don't think it's been released yet, but this was our one from last year. Um And just to kind of highlight the main important things I think if you, yeah, so the main things to say are um look out for when the actual application opens. Um So that would be on oral, which is what you would have used to apply for your foundation training if you've done foundation training in the UK. Um And then the next er major thing to think about would be booking um your M sra your Multispecialty recruitment assessment um which is usually around December and you should get an invitation to that. And then um there's a application an an evidence upload window for your portfolio which is about a month. Um And in this time, you can upload all of the evidence um that you have to support whatever your self assessment was. And we'll come on to talking about the self assessment in a little bit. Um And then the other thing to be aware of is, oh, sorry, the new timeline is out, apologies we made me made this um a bit early. Um But yeah, so hopefully you can just apply this to the new timeline. But um then the next thing to be aware of in February is booking your interview and making sure you get a, a good slot for that that suits like your voter or whatever. Um So those are the main things to be aware of. Um Then, so the first thing to look out for is when applications open on oral. So this is basically just like a long form that you fill in. Um with all the basic stuff, your contact information, you'll need your full employment history. So for example, if you've done F one and F two, all of your um posts including any future posts. So for example, um you'll be applying in your first posts of F two. Um And then you'd still need to put in your 2nd and 3rd post um for F two that year. If you've taken um a gap year or a JF three, then you need to put um any jobs that you've had in that time. Um Make sure you declare any gaps in your history. So if you've gone traveling, um if you've taken an F three, there's no penalizing for this. I think it's just so that they have a record of like what exactly you've been doing. Um Then you need to have three referees. So make sure that you kind of obviously think about this in a bit in advance um and notify who you're going to put down as your um referee so that they can so that they can um cos they'll be asked to fill in something. I think one of them has to be your current um employer. So I put my uh current es for my F two job. Um and then you just need to put in your details of your medical degrees. Um Do you put the future fy two post first? So if once you put in all your posts, um they will, it will just um arrange itself in time order. I think. So I don't think it is like a, you don't have to like put the future ones first. I don't think um I can't exactly remember. Iy if you remember, I think it just like orders, it automatically. So I wouldn't worry about it as long as they're all in there and you've accounted for any gaps, it will automatically tell you if there's any gaps so you can correct them if there is. I think I did it chronologically from F 1 to 50 just easier to do it chronologically. Um Right. So then when you come to doing your application, um you have to do a portfolio self assessment, which means that um you assess, you assess how many points you think you scored in each domain. And at this point in your application, you declare that and then when the application deadline closes, that is what you're saying your points were. So it's really important that um your achievements that you you've self assessed on are done before the application closing date. So that's probably gonna be in about December again. Sorry, not sure on the timeline for this year. Um Just don't be tripped up because the evidence upload portfolio like uploading your portfolio will close a bit later. So in February, but anything that you do between like the application closing and the um evidence upload closing won't count. So it must be at the time of the self assessment um deadline just if that makes sense. Um You can't edit your self assessment after submission, so it must be accurate. Um Obviously don't over claim because they do go through it meticulously and you know, if you over claim and that's they do have like a disclaimer saying that won't be looked like it won't be looked well upon. Um And the other important thing is that they are very, very picky in what evidence is required and I'll give you a few examples as we go along, but just make sure you're really meticulous in reading what the evidence required is and make sure you tick every box because I know numerous people who lost a huge amount of points because they didn't include a GMC number for their consultant or something like that. Um So yeah, just make sure you go through it very, very carefully. Um The, this is just to kind of er show you what they mean. So all the achievements should be completed at the time of application. So that's when you do your application on oral and then you submit it. Um anything anything done like teaching conferences attended after that um before you upload, your evidence is not going to count. Um And just to be aware that they are fussy and they say that you can't have um you can't use one thing in multiple domains. So if, for example, you have um done a qi project and presented it um at a conference that is used in the qi project section. It can't be used as an oral presentation in the publications and presentations section as well. So just make sure that you're kind of being tactical in where you're using um your highest achievements. Um I think, yeah, that was the main things to say there. So just gonna whiz through this because I'm sure um hopefully most of you have seen this, this is the latest um This is the latest uh portfolio requirements for 2024 quite similar to last year. Uh So we'll just pick up a few things that have, have changed. Firstly, you get the operative experience section. So this is um basically quite a fairly easy one to do. You just need to make sure you get to theaters um and you need to make sure that you're logging um, your cases in E log book, which is a website that hopefully you will have heard of. You can just make an account with your GMC number. Um And you just need to log all your, all your cases. Um They don't count if you've put, observe. So it has to be at some level of involvement. Um So usually assisting, assisting is enough. Um If you just click the next slide, Izzy, um I just put an example of what I printed out because I felt II found this very confusing what they actually wanted. So um you just need your consolidation report. So for example, this is my um plastic surgery uh E log book. So I just, I had more than 40 cases here. So I just use this one placement. Um And I just at the bottom, you can see, I just put the consultant's name and then their signature and then the important thing is to put their GMC number. Um Some people lost points on this section because their consultant didn't write their GMC number. Um If your consultant doesn't write it, just write it on like you can find it, you can ask them for it, you can find it on the GMC website and there's no excuses for it not being there. So make sure that he signs or she signs every page. So I got mine to sign each page of my log book. It's in the front and then the consolidation report here. Um, and as you can see, so most of mine, I didn't ever bother putting any of the observed ones, but, um, I put like ii included all of the assisted ones and then supervised trainer scrubbed. Um, and obviously if you've got like performed, that's great. Also include those. Um, yeah, so that's the E log book. I don't know if you have anything to add there. Is he or not? No, I um ano another one that's fairly straightforward attending surgical conferences. This hasn't changed from last year. It's still three surgical conferences for max points. Um And we'll just put the evidence that you need. So just make sure that your um certificate shows all of these things on them. Um And then just upload, literally just upload the certificate. Um It's fairly, fairly straightforward. One. Does each case on the E No. So um or how the E log book works is that you can just upload um which procedures you've been involved in and then the fact that you get your one consultant to sign off your logbook at the end is enough. So you don't need to have like say if you've done 10 cases in general surgery and 10 cases in urology, um you don't need to get your General Surgical Reger consultant to sign one and your urology consultant to sign the other. You can just get your, for example, educational supervisor to write their um signature on all of them. Hopefully that answers your question. Um So yeah, surgical conference is fairly straightforward if anyone's looking for a quick conference to add in, not a plug because I don't work for them or affiliated with them. But the National Surgical and Anesthetic Audit Forum is next weekend and it's only 5 lbs and it's online. So, do you really have to go? But if you're looking for one to just take off the video, it's cheap and it, there's no travel. Um I can post the link to that in the chat once I've stopped screening. So it's super easy to get points on this section. So, um yeah, hopefully it shouldn't be a problem. Um The next section is surgical experience. So they've changed this slightly from last year because last year we got points just for doing um a surgical placement in your foundation training. Um Now they're saying you have to do a surgical taste a week. Um They did have this as top points before, but presumably because of COVID, they've moved, they moved it down and now they've bumped it back up to the top again. Um Hopefully it should be fairly straightforward. Um Just again, be meticulous in the letter that you get from your consultant, make sure it states that they did a surgical taste a week from these dates to these dates and that is five days. Um literally spell it out for them and then make sure it's signed, um, I got my educational supervisor to just sign it. Um, it doesn't necessarily, I guess if you're doing a surgical taste a week or the consultant who you did it with would make the most sense. Um, but yeah, that's just a letter. So that should be fairly straightforward. And similarly, if you're doing a surgical placement, I got my es to sign a letter for that and an elective, um again, just a letter signed by whoever ran your elective. Um The Q I er section has quite a lot uh more points than it used to. That's because they've split it into one section which is actually doing the Q I project and the other section which is presenting it. So, um the, the best way to maximize on points is obviously, if you're gonna do a project, the best thing to do is find a quality improvement project which you then present because then you've basically maxed out on points for this section. Um Key things to be aware of is that it has to be um a surgically for maximum points has to be surgically themed. So make sure it's very clearly states that in the letter that your um consultant signs off, um make sure it has like all these keywords. So I just, when I wrote out my letter, I just like bolded um everything like all the keywords. So the fact that you're a lead, it's surgically themed in like general surgery or whatever it is. Um, and make sure you've said, uh, involved in two cycles. So it has to be, um, a full closed audit loop and then it's demonstrated change. Um, so that just needs a letter from your consultant. And then also, um, I think this bit, just more refers to the, the next part about, er, presentation. Um, if you present it to get the extra points, you get less points if it wasn't a surgical um quip, and then less points, again, if you weren't the um lead on it. So just, it's all about wording for these, the evidence really just to make sure that you make it really obvious so that when they come to check your evidence, they can just be like tick, tick tick ever, like you're a lead, it's surgically themed, it demonstrates a change. Um Cool. So then the next bit is just the presentation part. So, um again, if you've presented the Q I project that you will lead in or if you're just involved in it at a national International meeting, um then you get max points in this section which is five points. Um It doesn't, I don't think it's stated whether it has to be an aura or a poster presentation. Mine was just a poster presentation and that got me five points. So, um again, hopefully, quite straightforward because there are a lot of conferences. Um for example, asset um runs in March and that is a, a good conference to submit posters to um the Associations of Association of Surgeons in training. So have a look out for that one. If you're wanting to get some points in for that, obviously, if you did that this year, it wouldn't count um because it would be past the deadline, but if you're thinking of applying next year, then that would be something to look out for. Um next bit presentation of publications um fairly straightforward that top points are for an oral presentation at a national International conference. Um or you can be a first author in a pub cited publication. So just have a look at what is actually gonna get you top mark. So for example, if you have done an oral presentation, but it was a qi project and you've used that in your Q I project section, then you're obviously not going to be able to use that. So you may need to use a publication or a different oral presentation. Um I think everything else on this slide is fairly self explanatory, it just kind of goes through it. Um So yeah, I don't think there's anything else to say there. Um Teaching has changed from last year, so they've made it a little bit trickier. Um This year in that, in that you have to get um for max points, you need to get er region have done regional team teaching. Um which usually just means as long as you can say that you've delivered the teaching to either medical students from different medical schools or, um, foundation trainees from different, er, trusts. So how I may, I don't know because that's a fairly new one. I don't know how easy that is to do, but hopefully if you can work with a couple of friends and do it, you know, before December, then it, it may be doable. Um Again, just make sure that when you get your letter of confirmation, you are um making it very clear that it was face to face teaching and um write out that you did four sessions. So when um Izzy and I did a teaching sessions together and on the letter, we wrote out the what the four sessions were called um on the date, the dates that they were. So it was very obvious that there was more than more than four. you do get points in this section if you're just on regular teaching. Um The next slide I think shows the uh evidence that you need. So um essentially you need to have formal feedback. So what they say is that your, so for example, we II did a teaching session, we got um feedback from everyone. We showed that to our consultant and then we asked the consultant to sign the letter saying that they'd seen the formal feedback. You don't need to upload the formal feedback from all the students that have come to your teaching session as long as you write in your letter, like I think we wrote. Um but the, the consultant said that they had reviewed the evidence, the formal feedback and it was satisfactory or something like that. Um So that's kind of what it means by formal feedback does not need to be submitted as evidence but must be reviewed by the consultant. Um Make sure you've got the letter from the consultant and then um make sure again, like basic stuff like consultant uh GMC number um electronic signatures. I they do count. Um Sorry, I've just seen Izzy's answered it. Yeah, I II think we, we definitely use some electronic signatures on our because we had some word documents that were our letters um signatures. They weren't just written out names. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, they're like, like if you can do them on like a PDF as in, if someone's like done an electronic signature on a PDF, then that's fine. But I don't think like if they've just written their name, that's definitely not gonna count. Um I hope that what you're saying. Yeah. Um Last section I think they've also changed this a little bit round still max points for um having APG cert and then um substantial training has to be, I think they've changed it to be face to face whereas I think last year it was just online. Um and then t training and teaching methods, it's, it's very kind of wishy washy. So if you've just been on any kind of training, the teacher course, um then that would count for at least one point. Um It might be quite hard to get on a face to face training session and they do usually cost quite a lot of money. Um So that is a bit annoying that they've um increased the points there. Um I think with this one also just be mindful if you're like, thinking about doing APG cert, it is only an extra, like two points and it's a lot more er effort to do. I haven't, I didn't actually do a um PG cert and I don't think Izzy, you, you hadn't done one when we applied. Um Neither of us had got PG certs, but I think like people who have done PG certs were like, you need to weigh up whether the extra two points is worth all the extra time and effort. Whereas if you just quickly did AQ I project and presented it, you can literally get like 15 points in another section. Um So it's just about being kind of smart with your time. Um And like tactical, I think that is the end of, yeah, so that's the end of portfolio section. If you guys have any questions, we're happy to answer them either, maybe at the end if it's easier, um We'll just move on to M sra so frustratingly, they have introduced this last year, which came as a bit of a curveball to some of us who weren't expecting to have to sit an exam um as well. So you may have heard of the M SRA from people who are applying for GP training anesthetics, trainees, a lot of other specialties use it. Um which means it is very broad in what it covers. Um Essentially it, II think um I started revising this time last year. So about like, yeah, M mid October. Um and it was in dec uh in start of January and that was like light revision for kind of 2 to 3 months and then in the last kind of few weeks, a bit more heavier revision. Um It depends how confident you feel with like general medicine because a lot of it is like going back to the basics of like GPS and G psychiatry. So if you felt like these were topics that were covered really well when you were at medical school and you were very comfortable with them, you may not need as much time. Um But I still think it's better to, you know, be on the safe side and give yourself more time. Um It's a computer based assessment. So it's in the Pearson View Centers. Um And it's just, I think to, I can't work out how long it is over three hours. Um and it's split into two papers. So the first paper is um 75 minutes and um basically all of the clinical kind of questions, um you have a mixture of extended matching questions and single best answers and then a quick five minute break and then you go on to your 95 minute um professional dilemmas paper, which is S JT style if you did that for your um for your foundation applications. Um So it's just kind of what would, what would you do in this scenario? How would you respond? Um And that is a mixture of multiple choice and ranking questions. So you can see that the clinical paper is a bit more time tight in time in terms of there's more questions and less time and then there's um a bit more time in the threshold dilemmas paper because the questions tend to be a bit more worthy and the ranking questions can take a bit of time. Um Just remember that in the grand scheme of things that M sra is uh only, I believe it's the same this year, it's only been used to um what's the word er lost the word to choose you for interview? Um Yeah, I think that's still the same. Um So as long as you, you know, get a decent score, then after that, it only counts as 10% towards your total um CST score. So I think as long as you ii wouldn't like to stress so much about getting a really really good score because 10% out of the whole including your portfolio and your interview is very, very small. Um But as long as you get enough to get in um get an interview then that then that's um the important thing. Um I think that's kind of everything for M Sra again, happy to take any questions if that was too quick. Oh, yeah, sorry. We just added in some resources. So there are loads of resources for M Sra. Um I think the best approach is just choose like two. I think three at a max. Um I used, I think I just used pass med and maybe M CQ bank. Anything Izzy used pass med and pass test. Um And again, I think probably pass med is the best um resource that II found that was the best resource. Um But then just find which ones work for you and um kind of don't try and spread yourself too thin by signing up to all these question banks. Obviously they're not all free. So yeah, you want to just choose a couple. There are a few practice papers on the hee website which you can use as well. Um Especially they're quite useful for the um professional dilemmas uh questions as well. Um So yeah, that's M Sra. Now I can stop talking for a bit. OK. Now uh onto the interview. So this is gonna come around February time, but good to go to think a little bit about it, not gonna talk too much about the content of the actual interview, but more the strategy that jasmine and I had and a resource to be used and just how kind of planned our preparation. I think that's more useful and you guys can go away and sit down and otherwise for it when it comes to it, if you need to. So just briefly, they're kind of what actually happens within the interview. So it's split into four stations each five minutes. So you've got two management stations and two clinical stations, you start with the management and then you in with the clinical. Um So the whole thing is quite short and it goes really quickly um in the actual time when you do it. Uh So just to break it down, going through each one briefly, we'll start with the scene management one. So that's the first management station. So this is comprised of a three minute presentation that you give on a scene topic and then two minutes of questions on that topic. Although we don't know what the topic is for this year, it hasn't really varied much over the past few years. So it's all been on the theme of leadership and this was last year's question which got released with invite to interview um in January in late January. So it was reflected on your experience of leadership within a team or organization and how it would be useful as a core trainee. And that was very similar to the year before. So, um it was kind of easy to prepare for it in advance even though we didn't know the question. So general approach to preparing for this station um prepare for a two minute 45 2nd presentation. This is the first three minutes of your entire interview when the interviewers will actually be listening to you rather than just switching off because they've done 20 back to back CST interviews and heard the same thing over and over. And it's your only opportunity to really actually be unique. There's no longer any portfolio element to the CST interview, which there used to be. So this is the only time you have to kind of sell elements of yourself as an individual. So it is quite a powerful part of the interview. And I actually think this is the most important part um hearing different people's uh kind of initial presentations on this topic of leadership. Most people kind of seem to go for giving 2 to 3 examples um of medical and nonmedical situations when they had to show leadership. And they've kind of summarized that relating it to how you saw as a core trainee. So just to give you an example of how I did it, I did two examples. One nonmedical, I spoke about like um leading a football team and then I kind of related elements of it to the wh o surgical checklist um as well. So I had like a nice analogy going through it and II just felt like they love that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's just like feeding into the kind of thing they want um you as an individual, but also that you're gonna be a safe course surgical trainee that you understand your requirements in that role and then you'll get two minutes of questions on that. So, um there's lots of examples of common things that come up, but prepping for leadership questions and questions about handling mistakes and that kind of thing which you can do in advance. So, prepping the common questions and I'll give you some resources about that in a second. So that's the initial five minutes, you then move on to an unseen management scenario. Um Although it's unseen, it's r quite predictable what it's gonna be. There's lots of really common scenarios they just use over and over. Um what you get in your interview as well will be different to what other people get. So they're using lots of different things every year. So for example, it could be describing how you deal with a drunk senior who's going into an operating theater, an angry patient, a breach of confidentiality. Um a kind of a loss of data, again, confidentiality, wrong site surgery, all these kinds of things and having good structure is really key to these bits because you're gonna have to think a bit more on the spot compared to the first management situation. Um in terms of talking through an unseen scenario. So there are different kind of frameworks you can use, um which I'll come on to talk about resources to learn about them. But I initially started preparing, I thought all these frameworks were kind of silly and unnecessary, but they're actually really good and it kind of flapping a bit in the moment and you just want something to fall back on. So do go by the book and use those and they are helpful. Um And then you have two clinicals uh stations. These are actually the kind of fun bit the things we kind of like doing as medics, we get to talk about and show off your kind of clinical knowledge. And um um yeah, they're kind of easy marks to get. So make sure you are prepared for these, it's usually kind of an unwell patient and then you talk through how you'd manage it in an a toy A to E approach. And then a couple of questions about what the pathology might have been, what investigations you do. Um, and kind of just proposing a management plan and they're not expecting anything crazy, any kind of high level of knowledge. They just want to see that you will be competent as a CST and that you'll be safe. So just making sure you're doing the basic things like escalating to a senior when appropriate and that kind of thing. Um But yeah, I'll come on to some of the resources I would use to prepare. So I've just listed everything here and how much it costs. Cos I think that's also very important to consider. So just starting with the most important thing to use for the interview, which is the CST green book, which I literally have here because I was reading it before this. Um It is really good. It gives you an overview of what the interview process is. It gives you lots of examples to practice with and they, they talk you through how they would an answer, different kind of example questions. Um And it's small and like light and very accessible. Um And I think when Jasmine and I were applying, it was the main thing we used to practice with each other. You can also read medical interviews, which is a bit more generalist. So it's not surgery specific. Um But it's just for any medical specialty, medical interview. It's OK, it's a bit more beefy. Um But it has some kind of again information about using frameworks to structure your question answers and just basic into skill tips, not essential if you have time to read it ATL S. Yeah, ATL S is such a good course, but it's really difficult to get on to ATL S. If you are a foundation doctor, you can also get ATL S fully reimbursed. Um You just need to chase whoever's managing that within your trust. Um, to make sure you do get your money back. Um, for me, I did it like, a month before the interview and it was a really good way to prepare for the clinical stations. If you've done it before or you haven't done it, you can also just read the handbook as well. Um, which would be useful. Mhm. And then this one is quite niche to feel like people don't actually know about it. But on the Royal College of EDS of Edinburgh website, there is a um there are some like recorded um sessions that they gave a few years ago about applying to CST. And one of them is like an interview preparation evening. You don't need to be an R CS Edinburgh member. You just make an account, access their learning portal and if you watch this um interview prep evening, they go through two kind of example interviews and they do like a bad one and a good one. And then a group of consultants all discuss what was good and what was bad about it. And that was like one of the earliest things I did in my prep and just showed me, oh, this is what they're looking for. This is what I should aim towards. So that's quite useful. I've got the link there and I've got the link at the end of the presentation as well. And then another useful resource. This is free. This is course surgical interview guide, which if you just Google course surgical interview guide, it will come up. It just has more example um kind of practice to use and then Medi Body II included as well. Um I probably wouldn't recommend this as much cos it's 85 lbs and it kind of just has the same stuff as the CST green book and the core surgical interview guide. And that just talks you through answering different clinical and management scenarios. But for me, it wasn't worth the money I spent on it. So just go back to the money kind of aspect of things. I'd really recommend the Green Book um which is available in the BMA library and most hospital libraries and the R CS Edinburgh webinar just as the two best things on this resource list in terms of approach to the actual interview. Um It is good to read those resources and kind of sit down and think about your approach to the interview. But far more important than that is actually practicing. Here's just a list of the kind of courses I went on to went on prior to the interview, two of which were free, which was really good and one of which I paid for. Um But it just forced me to actually get on with my preparation because I realized I had to do this in front of a group of strangers. And it gave me that kind of practice of doing something in a slightly formal scenario with people I didn't know and being assessed. So these were pretty good. I know that stars will be running another course for interview practice. So maybe just sign up for their mailing list or follow them on social media. And if you are an asset member, um you should get told about any mock interview courses. They did such as this one last year, which was really good. Uh The doctor exam on also good not necessary if you're doing other ones as well. Um Yeah, this is kind of cringey. I just found this like um folder on my computer of all the times I'd filled myself when I practiced. Um And it's just basically like learning to sit in front of a camera and get comfortable with it because it's quite an unnatural thing, speaking genuinely into a camera about how passionate you are about being a CST. Um But it is a skill to be able to learn to sell yourself. So for example, learning to actually look into a camera when you speak ie when you're delivering your initial speech in the management section, um it's quite difficult to look in the camera. So like practicing small things like that can help improve your delivery when it actually comes to the day. So filming yourself, if you don't have anyone to practice with is useful. General kind of advice in terms of the interview film yourself or get a body to practice as regularly. So, Jasmine and I were practicing several times a week and the kind of run up to the interview, we just kind of fit in half an hour, 45 minutes in our day when we zoom, call each other and just kind of read through the CST green book, for example, and practice different stations and give each other feedback and that just forces you to have to speak aloud your answers. You might think you kind of know things really well in your mind. But then when you actually have to verbalize it, that is a different thing and it's, you just have to do it. Uh So yeah, like I said, practice speaking, engaging with a computer camera, it's really unnatural to do when you are coming up to the actual interview date, just make sure that nothing can go wrong. So I would do a complete practice in the exact setting um with the exact laptop and Wi Fi that you will use on the day just to make sure that everything's gonna run smooth if you've got family or friends in the flat, make sure they're just aware of the interview or that they can be out or whatever is just gonna make you most comfortable when the interview, er, booking date comes out. Um It was quite stressful last year, cos it all got quite delayed and because of the strikes, there was some really early entry dates and some late. And um, yeah, just to try and be aware of when the booking will open if you can get a slot earlier in the day. Some people say that's helpful because the interviewers will be a bit more switched on. My interview was right at the end of the morning though because I didn't get the slot I wanted and I was absolutely fine. So don't really worry too much about that on day. Just relax, distract yourself. You've done all the work at that point. So you don't need to, you know, be staying up late or doing loads of prep, just try and enjoy it, query. Um OK, so that's kind of the interview that was massive overload of information. So if anyone's got any questions about that, feel free to put them in the chat and we'll get onto them at the end. Uh We've got now just a short time to talk about ranking. So ranking uh kind of comes out once you've done once you've got your invite interview. II believe. Is that right? Jasmine? Um Let me think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you get your MSM Sra Score, you get your invite to interview. Um and then you uh rank the jobs then or perhaps a couple of days after. Yeah, I think you're right. And then I think the final deadline for um submitting your rankings is just after the interviews finish. Sorry, you'll want to be focusing on preparing for your interview. So don't get too hung up on ranking. Um There's so many jobs and it's quite a lot of information to pro process. So just think about what your own priorities are and that'll be different for everyone based on what specialty you're interested in and where you want to be, consider jobs that have specialties, which might be useful to broaden your experience and skills. So for example, if you want to do urology, you might want to make sure that you also have a general surgery job. And then I just included a couple of screenshots from my Aureol just to show you what it actually looks like. The actual ranking software on AUREOL is not very good. You get this page where you select by region and you can kind of categorize things by where they are in the country and what um specialty they are. Um But then when you get these, you get these massive lists of jobs and you have to click into them to actually get the information. So it's quite time intensive to do it via this. What I would do is download this all into an Excel sheet, which you can do an Aureol or you can use this very good website that someone made last year, which you can use to look at all the jobs in the UK. I'll just show you some screen shots from it so you can just filter more easily by specialty and region. Um And it just works much better than the oral website. So for example, here I've put urology or jobs. So show me how many jobs have any urology job in them. Uh And then you can just flick through what's available rather than having to go through this clunky oral process, which is not what you wanna be doing when you wanna be, you know, prepping for an interview, uh really recommend that website. Although of course, it is built on the 2023 process. So the jobs will be a little bit different this year depending on which trusts have got CST posts to offer and that kind of thing. But it's good just to get an overview of how many jobs there are and where um so you can look easily at the jobs you really want. Um just touch on when offers actually come out. So, um not getting a job in the first round of offers is absolutely not game over. Um It all happens at the same time for all specialties. So everyone will be going through this together. Um If you don't get an initial job offer, there'll then be uh a kind of time period when they'll do more offers based on who might have accepted or declined jobs. So if someone has turned down a job um that you ranked highly and you didn't get, and then they've said, oh, screw it, I'm gonna accept my radiology off which I've now got and they declined S est post. You might get that offer and another iteration of offers down the line and those iterations actually go on for quite a long time. Um So definitely don't lose hope if you're not getting something and in that initial round of offers. Um yeah. Uh and I think we now have time just for some questions, there's absolute overload of information. Um I hope that was useful. Perhaps we can thank you. Obviously, that's useful for me. You know, I'm applying for CST. So you've given us a really detailed overview of everything I have just checked. And apparently the application opened on the 26th of October. I know I didn't know either and close is on the 23rd of November. So it's a little bit earlier than last year. So just to remind you all they are applying, your deadline is 23rd November. So get that done soon. Um I'm just looking through the chart if there's any questions you guys haven't answered. But personal questions which I think would be helpful for all is how long did you prep for your interview? I know I've already asked you guys this already. But um yeah, when would you start interview prep? We started a couple of weeks after M sra like I didn't look at anything to do with the interview before M sra because I just think take one thing at a time and you have lots of time after M Sra to sit down and I think we had, like, two months after that. Iz. So, two or three months of, about the months. Yeah. And I felt like that was more than enough time. I think it's, it's a marathon. The CST application, not a sprint. So, don't overburden yourself. Um, trying to do too many things at once because the worst thing would be then you haven't given enough time to M Sra and you don't even get an interview. So yeah, that's, I don't think you agree. I completely agree. It is a marathon and you need to pace yourself and make sure you do lots of nice things as well. Um And you will have plenty of time to do interview prep after M SRA even though we're now overloading you with all this information that interview just ignore it. Ignore it. But um yeah, one thing at a time. Yeah, perfect, good, good. And about the ranking, you know, like F one and F two. Do you rank all jobs or do you just rank the jobs you want to do or do you have to drink every job there? Is it? You don't have to rank every job there is. But if you don't score hardly enough in your overall score to get your lowest ranked job and you've only ranked 100 out of the 600 jobs. Um You won't, you won't get a job if you see what I mean? Whereas if you're happy to take anything, you could rank all the jobs. I think that really depends whether you feel you would actually take a job you don't want necessarily. I think that's really personal. You know, you don't have to rank other jobs. I personally, I rank them all because I thought I didn't rank them properly. So for example, like Scotland, I think I literally just chucked them all in. Um But just because you can always decline a job and you can still get upgraded at any point. And I just thought I'd rather want to know what my final offer was and then I can decide, whereas if you, I don't know, you might change your mind later on, like you might have replied and been like, oh, actually, maybe I would move further away. Um So I think there's no harm in ranking them all and, but if you don't rank them all. So for example, if you only ranked London and you didn't get an initial offer, it doesn't matter that you haven't. Um like, say if you got what would have been your like 5/100 job, but you've only ranked 300 jobs, it doesn't matter that you haven't like ranked up to 500. If there is a space available, you will still um your offer if that makes sense. Um So I think it's a completely personal preference, but I don't think there's any harm in ranking them more. Mm. Just to see what you got. Yeah. Yeah, it's just obviously long, but we did that for F one left too as well. So, yeah, Joanna has asked how if you got through to office stage, you were offered a po slash area that doesn't work for you and maybe decide to decline and take an F three. If you then reapplied for CST the following year, would you be penalized for having a rejection offer in a previous cycle? No, you're not, you're not penalized, you're only penalized if you accept the offer and then drop out. So just be careful because when you get your first set of offers, you can either hold um with upgrades, which means that if any upgrade becomes available, you immediately get upgraded and you can never go back down to that lower offer or you can accept with upgrades, which means that you accept that offer. Um no matter what. So even then if, if you get upgrades and you don't like the job, you've still accepted it. So just be careful, um only accept it if you're definitely gonna take it. But if you've held it and then rejected it or, or if you've not, if you've just outright rejected it, then that's absolutely fine. They don't penalize you for reapplying. Yeah, I know lots of people that have done this route have applied just because, and then have actually decided to do a post. So a lot of people do that. Um Any other questions or any I mama has said GP undergraduate study as a post or gap after F one F two is I have less than three years employment. So I was looking at this. So basically your undergraduate comes up as a gap for some reason. But I think it's, you know, you can just leave it as a gap. And I think there's a box to put reason for the gap. So mine came up automatically as like a three year gap and I just put studying at university and then like name your university, like undergraduate study at university. Um That, that did confuse me at the time. So, but yeah, that's fine. OK, cool. Um Any other questions or any final tips? Because obviously it's quite daunting anything to focus on now in the next couple of weeks before applications are in start your application slowly. Um like take one step at a time. Um I think just remember it's not the end of the world um if you don't get in the first time, like so so many people um reapply and there are lots of amazing um opportunities that you can do in like an F three. I think people, yeah, kind of think CST is a be all and end all at the end of the day. You can also just not do CST and still end up getting a job so I really wouldn't get bogged down, um, about it. Um, I think it's just the process is very draining. Um, and it does take a lot out of you. So just be kind to yourself, like as you said, um, and make sure you're like taking gaps and don't try and do everything at once. Mhm. Ok. Fab, that's good advice. Um, I don't think I need to add anything you guys have covered so much. This talk will be recorded. So obviously it's a lot of info, you can go back, watch the talk, pause it, look at all these great links and resources that these guys have sent over. Um I will just send the feedback form and then you guys can have certificates. It will be really great if you can send us feedback. Um I hasn't really thank you so much guys. Good luck. Enjoy the rest of the evening. Thanks. Bye.