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Hello everyone um welcome to Tonight's webinar and this is the fourth webinar in our six webinar series and were the Northern Ireland Foundation trainees, Surgical Society and delighted to have christmas and mckee, a current course a surgical trainee and join us tonight and talk about the interview process. Um Just on over to Kristin, thank you very much okay, Thanks, kyle yep, so as I said, my name is chris Mackie, I'm a ct one currently working in northern Ireland um. So the really the session here is the Court Surgery ct one interview for Northern Ireland um So obviously I've been through the interview myself there last year, so I'll be able to give some first time advice about what it's like um. I also had the interview for the national mct one as well as the the st one for around three orthopedics in scotland um So a bit of perspective for, for different systems. Um If anyone has any questions about those, I'm happy to to speak to you after as well, um I've also got to the other ct ones with me tonight um so we'll lead can and martin limb, we'll hopefully be joining us later, so my talk will be about 20 minutes or so and then I'll bring them in and get their perspective and then if you have any questions, we'll try and answer them together so just as I say if you have any questions just put them in the we chat box over on the right hand side, and then Kyle will be keeping an eye on that and he can, he can ask us the questions at the end, so uh just a very quick plug on our Csaid were the f. T. S. S. Society part of our Csaid. Um I I think our Csaid is great. I remember myself and I was before I got involved in any of this stuff. The main reason I joined was just in the in the preparation for mrcs part b um particularly the the claims anatomy and the they run a very good Mrcs part B preparation course um and being an affiliate member, got you discount of that so you can become an affiliate member before you have your exams and also just bear in mind if you decide to do your part b in Dublin, you can still join the Edinburgh College as a member, which is what I did so the plan for the evening. Then I've sort of given a bit of an overview already, uh we'll talk about the sort of boring form out of the interview the timeline, um and then we'll delve in first of all to the management in the ethics section and then go into the clinical section and then I'll bring, will lead and martin in and we'll we'll see if, if you have any other questions that we can help with so just boring quick stuff to start off with um In case we have any years from further field. Um Northern Ireland, separate application process from the rest of the uk, and I'll refer to that just as the national system, so I put this slide up more for a bit of encouragement um. It's a bit scary when you first look at it there's last year for Northern Ireland, 363 applications for 38 posts, um But if you look at the number of interviews, 115 interviews and the lowest ranked person who was offered a post was 100 and eighth, so there's a lot of people who drop out who take up offers elsewhere or who just don't want to come to Northern Ireland that's fine um but what that means is if you're if you do the hard bit and you actually get an interview. You, if you're set on going to Northern Ireland for course article, training you have a very good chance of getting an offer if you do a bit of preparation, so I was hoping that you you guys would have heard by now, but I believe you you haven't actually even heard about whether you've got interviews or not. Um This was the mail I got last year, so you can see there the 14th of february monday the 14th, so I was kind of hoping it would be monday again this year, but hopefully in the next couple of days and that's what it looked like and I will invite you to to book your interview through the Oriole system and then again just to show you we got this email, then a couple of days later, and that just told us the structure of the interview was going to be three questions over 24 minutes, um but then two days before the interview, we got this email to say that it had been changed and it would only be two questions, one management and one clinical. It does say there that there will be 30 minutes per candidate, which includes a bit of time for i. D. Check, but in actual fact that the whole interview was about 10 minutes in total, and I know that other people would have said to see him so again just to go through this because it can be a wee, bit confusing um. The national UK system is quite well established, predictable. The format I don't know if some of you might be applying to their maybe have interviews coming up, it's usually before the Northern Ireland interview, um so it's usually half management and ethics and half clinical the management section has a three minute presentation, which is usually around leadership team, work that sort of thing, and then a couple of uh two minutes of questions just following on from that and then there's a completely separate five minute ethical scenario, and then for the national system, the clinical part is two scenarios classically, it's one trauma scenario, one non trauma scenario, but actually in my year it was two non trauma scenarios and then you can see that the Northern Ireland interview last year was a lot more simplistic um one ethical scenario and one clinical scenario which for everyone I knew was a non trauma scenario as well just assessment of an unwell surgical patient, so there was no like strict timings for the Northern Northern Ireland interview that I'd sort of move you on. Once you you've answered, but in terms of the like length of the questions, they were pretty much the same as the type of questions in the national interview, So if you're preparing for both, you know, they all seem to be taken from a the same uh bank if that makes sense yeah, so moving on into the different parts, so the Management Ethics section I think this is the section that if you do a bit of work for you, really shouldn't be afraid of. Um if you've got a structure, you can make your way through most scenarios and the same sort of ones to come up time and time again, and it were pretty predictable scenarios that came up at our interviews, so the spies framework is the one that everyone seems to use for these ethical scenarios, so that's the spies is, seek information, patient safety initiative escalate and support. So as an example, say, if you've um sort of one of the classical ones is you you've you've come into work, and you've noticed that your registrar smells of alcohol and you might approach it in that framework, say something like I would first of all uh want to seek more information about this and in a nonconfrontational manner, try to establish whether registrar is, in fact, under the influence of alcohol, uh patient safety would be my number one priority in this scenario, and so I would need to make sure that again, in a non confrontational way, I asked the registrar to leave the hospital and make sure that they have safe transport to get home, and I would then take the initiative to contact consultant on call to let them know that the registrars had to leave unexpectedly, and I'm sure there's adequate cover in place, um say I've escalated to the consultant already, and then just working through that framework, I would, as you know as a supportive colleague, I'd be concerned about the welfare of my colleague, and I'd be one thing to offer my support as to whether there's any underlying reason for this behavior. Uh This is an episode that's going to require follow it up, so I would encourage my colleague to speak to their educational supervisor, who would be most appropriate person to deal with this, and I want to ensure that this is followed up on so something like that with a prepare, and anything just by working through that format, you can cover most of the main points and I've also added this plus so in my head when I was preparing not so much for that station, but usually in some of these stations, there's another thing that you can think of that. I think separates the very best candidates um, So say, for example another common one that comes up a lot is wrong side surgery, so you could work through your whole spies approach and get to the end, but then there's actually quite a few other things you get odd, so you could go on and say um you know this is a significant event. I could reflect on this event in my e. Portfolio, you can pretty much always say that no matter what it is um you could say this is a near miss um to operate on the wrong side as a never event um and there are systems in place to prevent this such as the who checklist you could then say an incident report form would have to be completed for this and this would have to be discussed at the departmental meeting. You could also offer to say um because this should not happen, I would I could take it upon myself to offer to complete, for example quality improvement or an audit project looking at our compliance with preoperative marking, consenting on the WHO checklist, which could then be discussed at the next audit meeting, So there's always things like that, if you're thinking of them, you can apply them to a lot of these sort of scenarios and it's the same sort of things that come up again and again the other thing I would just say for this uh section, There are a few little areas that just a little bit of reading goes a long way. I think people over prepare for the clinical scenario, um but this is something that you can just a little bit of reading can actually help quite a lot so things that come up a lot like uh near misses or never events, sorry, knowing what that means. No examples of never events, uh who checklist can sand forms, come up a lot um those sort of predictable things, if any of you have medi, body or any of the textbooks for the interviews. It's those kind of things that they'll go over, but doing a wee bit of reading on those. I would say it goes a long way, send the clinical scenario, so you thought you were done with a. B. C. D. And Medical School, but you're only getting started um So it's again, if you've got a structure and you go through your a. B. C. D. E. And you can do that succinctly and you know it off by heart. Then, again, there's not a lot to be afraid of here. I wouldn't recommend doing a lot of you know revision surgical textbooks and and studying for this. It's not really a clinical knowledge exam um As I say people over prepare for this section under prepare for the Management Ethics section, so I would try and balance it a wee bit more the other way a few things that you will be aware of, but these are the things that people uh don't do under the pressure in the scenario and usually you're quite good with your 80 you've got it learned off, but remember to make it specific to the scenario. So, if you're asked to assess a postal patient who's had recent abdominal surgery that sort of thing came up quite a lot for us last year. Um you yes, you're going to want to do your a. B. C. D. E. Approach, but you're gonna be want to focus on your abdominal examination. Looking specifically for certain findings, you want to look at the wound or the dressings any drains. You're gonna, wanna ask to look at the op, note if there's potentially gonna POSTOP complication um Rather than just doing a generic a. B. C. D. E. And saying I would examine the abdomen and then this can be difficult and it takes a bit of practice later on. I do mention it's good to take pauses and which is something that you get better out the more you practice um So like when I'm doing the a. B. C. D. Usually after you finish see that's the point where if they're going to ask something they might, but in so it's good especially over zoom, where it can be a bit awkward um just sort of pause just especially if you're not looking up with a camera, look up just see, are they gonna about to ask you something because it can be very awkward. If you're just you know word vomiting for five minutes straight and the examiners trying to but in it can it can actually quite difficult um So I would suggest maybe just taking brief pauses maybe after see and maybe after you've finished your a. B. C. D. Just to give them the opportunity to ask a question, but if they don't take the initiative then to go on and say what you would do, um so you're gonna wanna talk about escalation and almost all the scenarios, you're going to be talking to the red uh you may be going to have to ask a bit further than that um you might have to speak to. I see you if the patient's um well, um and then you're gonna be wanting to. If they don't prompt you talk about what you're gonna do in terms of your differential diagnosis, plans, any other investigations, and then that's I think one other thing that seems to separate the very best people you know from practicing with other people last year and doing. I did one of the interview courses as well, um is how you present your differentials so people have different ways of doing it, um but the I suppose the main thing is just making sure that you're not just rambling a list of differentials, you know you could know 20 different differentials for pancreatitis, but if you don't present in a logical way you know, they're looking to see that you can grip your thoughts um so the way I sort of do it after practicing is to, to go with the one or two main most important differentials are the most common things and then try and grip the rest into two or three other main groups, and the way you do maybe depends on the exact scenario. Let's say for example, you were you were his house in a patient too hard, acute abdominal pain after an ERcP. Um You might say the main differentials have an altar relight are um acute pancreatitis or a boil perforation. Following the procedure. Other differentials would include GI differentials such as peptic ulcer disease or acute boil obstruction, other vascular causes such as an abdominal, aortic aneurysm, renal causes such as a renal colic, or gynecological causes such as uh variant or shin. At least then you, it shows that you're thinking logically about it and they can ask you further if, if they want to, but it shows that you're you're clued in and you're not just struggling to think of the next thing in a long list and just on the clinical ones, it is the common things that come up you know like pancreatitis. Just general POSTOP patient has taken them well. It's become toxic, arctic pyrexic. Whatever they don't ask you about the weird wonderful stuff, so just I've got a slide on the other management stuff, so as I say this didn't come up last year in Northern Ireland, um, but what I don't know if they initially planned three different stations, and they then changed to so who knows maybe the third one was meant to be something like this more traditional interview question and I tried to clarify with them to before this. What the plans are for this year and all of they were able to tell me was that there were, there was going to be no significant change in the interview format from last year, but I don't know if that means the three station or the two station format, So if I was in your position on your time, I know it's difficult with everything else going on, but I would try and do a bit of preparation for that sort of thing as well. This is the thing that people prepare for the worst, and people do the worst in. Because if you're if you're not prepared for, it's not like the other ones where you've got a structure you do have to think of things on the spot, which can be really really difficult, so what I actually did last year because I was a plan for national as well. I knew I had to do this sort of stuff. Um I had a word document on my laptop and I went through and just for different things prepared like 23 minute answer for the big things um. And then and it's surprising it can take you 20 minutes half an hour to prepare a good two or three minute answer, but I I think that really helped because even though it might be something slightly different, they ask you at least just having some reference in the back of your mind of something that you're not having to think of completely on the spot um. So sort of things I'd recommend maybe preparing for a wee bit are the big buzz words, so teamwork, leadership, communication, those things come up again and again I can ask things in lots of different ways you know tell me about uh the qualities of a bad leader and about, tell me about the time you witnessed bad leadership. Those sort of things are really difficult to answer um and I can read those are the things that can really help to have something slightly prepared um. The other thing you know comes up again again the difference between management and leadership, especially the national interview that's a classic question, um. So I can't remember the exact thing I learned but to me, management is uh maintaining status quo, ensuring everyone does their jobs to maintain to maintain the status quo, whereas leadership takes that a step forward leadership is multifaceted, A leader sets a new direction and unites the team together towards achieving that goal, so to me that's the sort of difference, they're looking for then no your cv, um So you know that they ask you tell me about your experience and research teaching presentations, Whatever or they ask you tell me about your intergrated degree, something like that you know you have to know those things, so again, I would have tried to prepare like a one or two minute answer on those kind of things, then the other thing it's good to have two or three, it doesn't have to be loads even just to good clinical examples of something that happened in work that demonstrates multiple skills that you can use to answer almost any question where they say, give me an example of a time that you demonstrated leadership or teamwork. If you have a couple of really good examples that are transferable, then you can just read off the story and focus on on actually answering the specific question because again it's really difficult to think of those things on the spot, but hopefully it doesn't come up um just a quick bit of information just on preparation. I know it's how do we haven't even found out if you've got an interview yet, it's not that long, it's only a few weeks really until the interviews. Um so I wouldn't recommend doing a lot of reading and books, and things like that I did have the book on the left, not the one the court Surgery interview one on the right, the green one. I've heard it is very good, but I just didn't want to buy more than one book and they can be useful, but as I say not to be reading in the week before the the interview, your cell about practicing medi body is something I find quite useful and even in a couple of weeks before the interview. If you haven't got it, I'd maybe recommend considering it, I think it's about 60 or 70 lbs um It's useful to go through on your own, but it's also useful if you're practicing with other people you can and you don't have time to like prepare a station or something you can just use one of them anybody. There are the common things that come up again and again, um there's a very good chance that something on medi body will come up on your interview and then there's the courses so I don't know if any of you guys have have booked them if you've been on them already either. I think these two at the bottom. There still are spaces for the courses before your interviewed it um I did do an interview course the one c s t interview one. I don't know if it was the best one um to be honest. I think it probably is a bit of a rip off overall. Um They don't teach you anything new they didn't know um but probably the most useful thing about it. It's just a mock interview practice um maybe even more so just with complete strangers, who can be a bit more critical bit more honest, but it's definitely on something that's necessary to go on a course. I think it's just sort of personal preference. Virtual setup is is important. Um This is actually exactly the way I did my interview. Um I wanted to set it up and just show you and this for the guys. As well. I just wore a shirt for Northern Ireland and the UK interview um I know some people wear suits. They don't really tell you what way or the other. I wouldn't wear anything less formal than a shirt um but you want to have it all set up properly, so camera um at head height, you don't know, be looking down or up, you want to have sort of professional enough background um have good backlighting, and so some people invest in in proper stage set up with, like, I know people who have spent hundreds on the best webcam um have like proper backstage lighting uh I actually did have to admit by a we uh light off amazon and I actually would recommend it. It was only a tenner or something but I've got annoyed here, so if I turn it off you can see the difference there, so it does make things a bit brighter and I think it looks a bit more professional and then you practice with that. You know, so you're not just sitting on your phone speaking to your mate. Whenever you're practicing, you want to practice in that set up so that it feels natural when you're doing it one day, so just on that I think to be honest. This is one of the things they did at one of the courses. I was on. It's set up a Whatsapp group for you guys. You know you're the guys who are applying this year, you're the ones who are doing the preparation. So um If you want you can join this Whatsapp group, it won't be for me, it'll just be for you guys um. And it's just it means that there's a bank of other people there who are also applying. Um If, if somebody's free, one day, you can message in and just see who else is free to practice, you don't have to know each other and as I said, it can actually be more helpful if you don't know them and it can put you under that women more pressure as well, um but practice is key for this exam. Uh I'll put that qr code up at the end. If if anyone hasn't got it there, we can send you links to it as well, so it's sort of gone over management perhaps stuff as I say, it's that sort of traditional more interview question might not come up, but I would do a bit of preparation for it. If you can general advice stuff. That's sounds simple, but is really crucial um try to perform consistently across the whole interview and that sounds stupid, but um you'll find when you practice one of the things I I did with some of the guys I was practicing with is if everyone's okay with it is recording the practice, um So you can either just do that audio, or you can record it on zoom, or whatever you're practicing on um and if you watch it back or listen to it back, you'll find you start off upbeat, enthusiastic, good eye contact and then you get one difficult question and suddenly you're everything drops and you never get back up to that level. Um So with practice, you recognize that and you learn to sort of move on from those setbacks, but you want to try and eat him to finish the interview as you started and then it's it's almost always going better than you think it is, so you've got I've always in the back of your heads and it's going terrible, I'm never going to get an offer, um but with practice, you'll recognize it actually most of the time. Most of your answers are, are good or average at least um And so you know you'll be doing some really good answers and some just okay answers, but it's never as bad as you think it is um with practice, confidence will come and then remember the the graph that I put up with the start. The odds are in your favor and you've done the hard but getting the interview as I say, almost everyone who gets an interview does get an offer and and if you can do well in the interview, almost certainly you get a good offer and you have a good chance of getting somewhere you want to go so again there, I just put up the key our code, I see, will lead and Martin are on the line there, Thanks for joining us, will lead uh so it's just going to introduce these guys and and let them just give you a bit of their perspective how they find the interview maybe, how they find it compared to other areas they applied to. Uh so will lead is ct one currently working orthopedics and all the galvin and Martin is doing General Surgery incredible at the minute, so we'll leave maybe, if you wanna, cool first yeah, so um so like you once right, so, um I applied for both the UK and sorry guys are you done, I'm gonna go, I'm sorry about that, so um uh initially wanted to get the the UK sort of national based on because I am from me, um so just some differences that I noticed was one that the english one. As you mentioned, it's a lot quicker, the one in Northern Ireland to give you a lot more time you have 10 minutes per question, which was fantastic um give you a lot of time to think about your answers and it was a stark contrast to what I experienced in the UK one, and they seem to be a lot more interactive as well in terms of their questioning and just speaking about the questions in itself, they were pretty much what you would expect like you know from the same pool of questions that they would send to the national based applicants as well and and just building on those so, the management ones and those actual questions. Um They you need to so what I did for what I was prepared for these interviews. I had three resources, one was um anybody, I think anybody is fantastic. I went through those. The second was being sort of the interview, white book and then the Green Book Are you resources uh. Uh well, it's having a few technical difficulties uh We'll eat, I'm just wearing martin, Martin is actually on shift. I think that's fine do you mind, if if Martin just put central thanks, so oh, yeah, so uh what are you talking about again, just sort of like the overall experience is that right chris, yeah just how you find the northern Ireland interviews, and I know you applied the the uk as well how you find it. I've done both. Um like you've mentioned the time allocated for the n. I. Interview, when I've done it last year uh was longer, and I you know I ended my station quite early sort of looking at examiner and you know, sort of like yeah, I think I think that's it for me and you if you, if you sort of practice, your um your answers within five minutes or so for the sort of english or national interview, you would find that you're you know you're generally in a, in a pretty good spot for uh the Northern irish interview. Um Questions wise, they were fairly similar um had something about abdominal pain, postop um uh and and and something like if if there's an issue in theater, you know what would you do sort of like. If you had some theater experience, you should be able to sort of ramble through uh some of your things um There might be frameworks like the spice are. I'm not sure if chris has mentioned this earlier because um you know, join you know a bit late did you did you tell them what the spice are uh framework yeah we talked through the spy. I just have a spies. You've spies are, but I know everyone uses the same framework, the the R is reflection and sort of like room for improvement, or something like that, so after you had support you, you know you would always say I would discuss with my clinical supervisor. I would write a reflection that had uh you know maybe do like a q. I. Project or something to to improve the problem some something like a like ending spiel. Um Besides that, uh we didn't really have any uh ethical questions for the northern irish one um The National interview we had what was it trying to think. Um Like like after they asked you your three minute presentation, they would ask you mine was on like the w. H. O. Checklist, um some some sort of ethical principles behind it, uh which um you know I didn't find that that was the case with the n. I. One. Um. Otherwise, I think the points that you would score um the n. I. Has fewer stations so technically, If you do well, you would do much better than the english one, um but like if you sort of like a middle or like you know like a jack of all trades, perhaps the english one might be better because you just have more stations, yeah, no so the one thing I quite liked about the Northern Ireland one is so when you go through the self assessment in England, they account for what your self assessment score is, whereas in the Northern Ireland, it doesn't matter so once you self assess yourself. It's more based on whether you get an interview or not after that. I don't know if you remember Chris, but they mentioned that you will account for any of the points towards your final score or rank. There's all purely based on how you perform the interview, which that's always quite nice because it gives everyone sort of a level playing role based or playing peeled rather based on how well you perform in the interview, um so, the things like just because when I was starting preparing for this stuff, no one really sort of gave me guidance like how do you prepare for these things, what do you want to do so. I'll just tell you how I did it and so the three resources that Chris mentioned well several of them, but of those, the three I used was the Green Book. I think it's very good, the you know the the medical interviews that's sort of a must everyone said, This is the mask just let this book and you'll be fine. I didn't explain how to learn it or what to do with it. Um So, I had to figure that one out by myself and many buddy was the one sort of the guidance. It gives they sort of update uh stations kind of gave up now, but they used to update them about all the sort of recent ones or any changes to them um in both in clinical management, so what I used to do was just like how Chris said was preparing each sort of these answers. Even though we have an idea of what particularly can come up, you should be prepared for the unexpected, so you don't lose those points, so all those kind of scenarios that they make them up like what's your greatest strengths or tell them about and tell me about time where you demonstrate a good leadership, bad leadership, or you did something bad make I used to just literally sit down, make sort of like a spiel for it, and I'll go over these and just make sure I know them even though they may not pop up, but just in case they did right, I know what I'm going to say you've got to also remember that you you can just kind of copy what they've done and then just fit into your own kind of personal life as opposed to just repeating what they've said because everyone's read the book, but make it more sort of personal look at the scenario and say hey look has something like this happened to me and yes okay, how can I change it and then just follow follow this to create your own spiel for the clinical just go with all the clinical kind of stuff you're 80. Assessment has to be slick, has to be done with it in one minute and it's not like oh yes patient. I will start with a. T. E. A. Is fine, no, it doesn't work like that, it's not, it's not an off ski, it's it's an interview, so the question that I got in my northern Ireland clear tickle scenario was chap came in in his eighties hypertensive. They specifically mentioned it so they'll give you these little trigger words, but they don't have to and he's got this kind of law in pain his pyrexia well, what is it now in these kind of things. When I went on, One of the interview course is, is that you have to look at the triple a's. So when I said I was like this patient sounds clearly unwell, I'd want to move into an area, which is adequately resourced and assessing you might need to eat rather than going yeah, I'll begin with a blah, blah, blah, I'll do this slowly. There's no, it's not it don't just jump into it. You have to explain this an interview and I gave sort of reasonings behind each state, so for be I would get a chest x ray because his respiratory rate was high, blah, uh just and see I'll do this, etcetera, etcetera. And then towards the end of it. Once you've done your whole 80 you, I summarized mine in sort of differentials in building on what chris said, so I was like my primary differential for this patient, given the fact that he's a hypertensive with joint pain would be a triple a. I would want to rule this out, but I would also think about other differentials and to answer that I would break it down into uh differentials based on the GI, uh urological and etcetera, and then I'll get and I'll go for g. I would consider this is this is this, a neurological, this is, this is this, and then they would ask you more questions, so it's all about sort of a systematic approach and knowing this field and making it sound like it's not field if that makes sense, so that comes through practice um. And finding people to practice with is very important Because more and more you do this um more natural, it will become and then just to give you about the management station. Mind was, so, I had one of them asked me what was consent forms um. Then after that one was about a patient who didn't want to consent for an operation or something so you spite, okay and instead of going what what I don't do is, I don't blatantly, point like seeking information, patient safety, I'd say it like and this patient's seem to be clearly and well um. And I think it's important trying to find out what's going on is that, perhaps the reason why the patient is won't have this operation is there's something going on and then I need to explore this and the reason I need to do that is because patient safety is my biggest concerns, patient's as well, and they need an operation and then I was like I'll take the initiative to just you know blah blah blah blah blah blah rather than just saying yeah I would seek patient information oh it's it's a patient safety issue is this is, This is This has to sound natural as well if that makes sense, um so using so, that's the interview book, the court, surgical, the green one is good as well. I'll give you ideas of how to answer certain questions and so will many body need to take time out and do these things, treat it as an exam as opposed to just like oh It's an interview will be okay, blah, blah blah, because the thing is some people well, most people will take it serious and they will take it as an exam and they will be the ones who are prepared. It doesn't mean that you you won't be, um but it does require time and effort, and I'm sure you'll be fine, I'm sure especially applying for the Northern Ireland one. It's very nice you have plenty of time um and what I do recommend is even if you do want to go for the Northern Ireland, you should still try for the UK national because you don't know how things are going to be, things are gonna get more and more competitive and rather than took your eggs in in one basket so to say why not piper both and worse comes to worse. It will just give you another interview experience. In my opinion, I think the UK pay system is a little bit more harder Northern Ireland one is a little bit better in my opinion whether they do the interviews. No, yeah that's preliminarily thanks very much for that. I agree um as I did the UK interview, but wasn't really intending to go outside of Northern Ireland um just to reiterate, I mean it's too late. Obviously, you guys have applied or you haven't but um you're doing your UK interview. It is the same sort of questions, although I would say yes the like the Northern interview, you do have a bit more time. It's maybe not as strict as the UK one, but because there were a few stations, I felt under more pressure for even I felt with the UK one, you had sort of four separate chances to do well. Um yeah no no that's fine that's fine no, because I yeah no no it's different, I never thought of like that because Northern Ireland wasn't my first choice um. So for the England, when I felt much more stress when I went into the Northern Ireland and I was just like yeah, okay, fine, and then when I realized, I got 10 minutes per station and there's only like one or two questions like really it's good, but I guess it didn't matter to me as much as it did for you, so, I guess the pressure is different, but yeah and it's like you say, look how many jobs they offered 108 that's a lot yeah. Um In terms of your preparation, really like a few approximate somebody, how would you have done it, you've just asked each other what you've prepared questions or just done off medi body uh yeah so um so how how high high so for me um to just give a little background. Um Before I applied you know, I spoke to like my registrars my colleagues, I'm like yeah you know like all the cTS and everyone was like Yeah, yeah, we'll help you we'll help you and so when I came to the interview, they're actually kind of just flaked and it's very frustrating because I had these plans to work with them and I didn't prepare that, so what I did was um And this is why I think this Northern Ireland, This sort of interview practice group is fantastic. Cause you always have people um and you know people are going to go, try and want to practice some of these questions as I had to go and read it and I literally just made a thread saying hey does anyone want to practice 30 s c sub and there's a bunch of people that did and they're the ones I practice with and the people that I met and I think there's about five of them and four of them scored in the uk, when they were like in top fifties, these guys smashed it, um but they were people who started preparing in november before applications even started, and they didn't even know they were going to get an interview. They were like if we don't get it that's fine, but if we do get an interview, I want to be prepared and the things that we used to do was, so, we decide do we want to do a clinical or a management or whatever, and we just decide what we want to do or we could do it as a. It's like a whole whole kind of like interview thing you give your speak you get your management, you get a clinical, etcetera, etcetera, so they would just put a random topic from anybody a question that they've heard on the course or whatnot austin sort of answers, and then we just got over it like that, but that's that's it's very important that sort of stuff and especially the the fact that you said you know being ready being in the environment, purchasing over the computer because it's a different sort of style and there's a different technique to it um as the best thing in front of what of someone else because it's offered you're looking at a screen as opposed to talking to people um. And you need to get comfortable in that environment, Famous. I don't know how did you do it, chris, how did it go for you. Yeah, yeah, I mean well, I'd agree like as I say, it's all, it's all about practicing on zoom and we tried to do that early um I, I had I had a couple of guys. I knew you were applying, so I practiced with them on zoom um Initially like when you do leave it more time, we sort of did it that we kind of prepare a full interview for each other. Um You know like full management and ethics station and then two clinical scenarios kind of based on like the the UK interview um system um but then like close to the time if you're practicing more often, you know if you're practicing like three times a week, 34 times a week and you don't have time to prepare them, then we were just kind of doing them off medi, body, but you find even if it's even if you've done the same station four times on pancreatitis a. B. C. D. You still like you do learn every time you do it um and you learn every time you practice somebody new yeah absolutely because you pick up their traits and see what they did well and things like you don't want. Um It's very very very good you know that 80 I hear in my head every time I go to a drama call. I see I hear it in my own head. I'm like yeah, it's not bad, it's not bad, but is there any any questions, Does anyone have question because this is a really good chance and it doesn't happen, it doesn't have to be so formal, we can help out like what do you need help with what how can I help you really can. I just ask a question too either leader, practically how did you work with um preparation for interviews. Um appreciate people have runs in night long weekends, and it can be quite hard to find time to actually prepare. Um so I'm a little bit unique because I had had a little kid, I got two of them, two of them now so uh would work, I'd I'd catch a little nap uh for the kids to bed and then I'll just study after that to like one or two o'clock in the morning um and then on my days off, my wife would be kind enough to just look after the kids while I try and practice some interview, So for me, it was a bit different. I don't know how chris might be a little bit more um yeah, yeah well. I was it was tough, It is tough, like it's it's not gonna be easy, I mean it's ideally you've got a placement where you can take a bit of time off. I mean thankfully you know when the interviews are going to be so if you've got on your leave for study leave. Um You could take a few days beforehand. Um I was in a busy general medical job in the ulster at that time that were, it was like short asset joe's and there was wasn't really much scope to take leave. I think I was maybe working the day before the interview, um but it's that's why oh wow, yeah, yeah it's like that's why it's kind of important to try to do as much of it upstream as you can. It's not an exam you're not going to be sitting the night before cramming, There's not nothing useful you're going to be able to take the night before, uh but it's just I would recommend if you've got the option um at least take one or two days off because the other important thing is you want to try and be relaxed and get an early night sleep the night before and you watch a movie or something just to completely not think about interviews for a day, um but it's tough yeah, I don't think there's any easy answer for it to be honest. I guess that's like everything inside like it never gets easier, never gets easy, you have to sacrifice something and that's that's the reality of it. It's only for a little while anyway, just prepare well um and that's sometimes hard to do you need support during the group found people practice with them. You learn so much more in practice than sitting by yourself and reading a book Because even though you know in your head, just just viewing it out, it will just sound like jumbles because they interviewed, they interview. It's an interview, remember it's not an exam. They test you on a variety of things. It's not just your knowledge and there's a lot of things like communication, your professionalism as well, these kind, and and the way you do that is through the practice, you want to appear profession, you want to sound like you know what you're talking about and that counts and that scores you These kind of points that you're looking for they don't want to hear someone saying oh, yeah I got yeah and then I would I would have a look at this note and then there's a patient said, yeah I'd rather do this blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, and it just sounds so sick and you're like wow this guy's brilliant. I'm definitely giving him a job and most of all most importantly is be safe in the clinical scenario, don't be a hero, which I think everyone is is um should be aware of anyway. So like you know that's what they want to hear is, you can make an easy 80 assessment you know when to escalate and you sort of know what you're looking for and your differentials make sense right, um so so nothing silly and nothing heroic and just escalating accordingly because what they what they are, they're consultant consultants are going to be there and they want to see that Ok is if he's gonna be my s. H. O. U. M. Because that's where you're gonna be potentially could be one of the s. H. O. S. Is he gonna be safe is he going to do the right thing is he going to be able to manage the patient and not cause any sort of harm, so it's just those simple things uh yeah, are there any alert question sorry, if if anyone has any questions feel free to call them in the child, yeah honestly, no there's no, because this is a good time to ask them. Um It's no pressure you can ask whatever questions you want silly stuff that's fine this is what we have to and it is also just asked you might as well ask them to ask them to me and then I'll be like okay because I had never assume it's a bit annoying for the guys, just like they're probably gonna find out tomorrow or the next day whether or not they have an interview I was hoping they would know by no way but maybe it's very stressful. I honestly recommend that you find out tomorrow. It's very, very, very stressful, try to you know, arrange a practice session in the, in the next couple of days because like it's actually what three weeks until the interviews um and and you wanna like you're not gonna be good the first time you do it and you're going to improve every time you practice, so you're better starting as early as you can yeah and just be open to the feedback that you're receiving rather than taking it because if someone says, oh you know, I think you need to weapon this or you need to read about this or something like that um you can do just and the courses I'd I'd be careful with the courses. I went on several of them and I won't say which ones and they will they were like oh. Yeah we'll definitely get a job you'll definitely get a job and I think they just told everyone that even though I think they I didn't get a job in England, so so just be careful with those, they do a lot of stuff that you can do for free, they use the same resources that you will have as well know certain definitions like compartment syndrome, never events, adverse events. Um No some stuff about like how the reporting process works because I was a question um I got my english in my England one. It was a very strange question so like how would you report um sort of like a day text or how does the reporting date x. It's sort of the process work and our friend gave me a random document the day before and I just read it and remember that um just listen to the question, so in my english one, so I'll tell you all the questions I got so for the northern, for the english one and management one you give your speech um and if you are interested about what your speech is going to be, you can break it, you can do it in two ways, one is you can just make it into one long speech or what I did was I broke it down to three mini little speeches, so three paragraphs, so the first one was about like how I demonstrated leadership on an Ent Award, which is very busy and how I did and managed and delegated, and all that kind of stuff second was about how I managed an audit and the third one I thought I'd make it different apart from something not from the clinical, which was um the something that I participated in in the cycling charity that was run by my friend, and I should talk about leadership in that, and then they will ask you questions on your speech, two minute to minute questioning, and it'll be related to do it and what she asked me was like oh how did you raise some of this much money and it kind of threw me off because I didn't expect it on. Hindsight was looking at for a sort of like what was your strengths and weaknesses and I could have answered it better. Uh Following that was a question based on you know the audit, what was a never event, give me a definition of a never event what's an adverse event, give me the definition of it can you give me examples of a never event an adverse event and then how the reporting process works for that. Um Then uh for the clinical scenario, my first one was posted Pyrexia, no sorry, yeah I posted Pyrex, yeah I'm just going through that, don't forget one of your postal pirates is, can be covid, so make sure you say covid swab um and the other one was a patient, so I didn't listen carefully on this and I think this is where I lost marks where they were saying like young chap came along, had a to be a fracture now, he's screaming in pain, and I thought you said he had it to be a fracture and went for an operation now. What do you do um so, listen very carefully for the question, just answer it accordingly, it's all very similar and then for the Northern Ireland won, the management was consent, um and then a patient who doesn't wanna procedure and how you do um And then we talked about stuff like how how how you can provide. Uh no sorry it was about capacity um and uh something else but it's all in the uh medical you know the medical interviews book exactly basically where the word what they wanted or in the Green book. The Green book answers it very well and I just basically ripped that off and they liked and they're like yeah um. And then the clinical scenario was a chap with the triple a um He was parexel, so I think it's probably more piloting arthritis, but they want to hear that you're thinking about the differential of a triple a rupture, it's a triple a rupture until proven otherwise with any male who's who's above 60 or 70 rather with blowing pain, so that's the top differential just think about that, So even if it's obviously something else just be like one of my top differential, So this would be blah, blah, okay yeah well, That's interesting because uh your national questions, one of yours was the kind of near miss uh never event type thing and then one of your clinical ones was POSTOP paroxy, and they were my questions for Northern Ireland, so it's just kind of um just shows you they're just like interchangeable the sort of stations they use um so that that was really all my Northern Ireland view was a question about kind of centered around uh a patient who um you've noticed preoperatively the wrong size marked and that's talking about never events um and then the clinical scenario was just your called uh patient's day one after a cholecystectomy, a difficult cholecystectomy on the spiked, a temperature um that was it very limited information um just adding and it was all like differentials and escalation, so it's nothing really complex um It's all about your process and it's energy technique really more than anything else no it is, it's it's hugely interview technically, just yeah, yeah well, look thanks Very much, will lead and thank Martin as well and get no, I see there's a few few people have joined the Whatsapp Group, so it's good we'll hopefully get a few more joint as well, but it's probably a really good we network for you then um and coming up to the interviews just to get a good bit of practicing um So unless kyle you anything further to say, um I know, there'll be a feedback uh Question are sent light from metal, so I would really appreciate if you could fill out in for us and then I think you'll get a certificate san tight for attending um, and I'm happy for anyone to contact me. I'm in the Whatsapp grip or by email or whatever if you have any other questions or want any practice or anything like that, but otherwise, all the best I know, we haven't found out yet, but good luck. Uh remember gotten interviews uh Because most of the bottle, if you can get thought and you do a bit of preparation, you have a really good chance like you would be positive, thanks very much, chris, um that's really good insight actually into the, to, re, process and will aid and Martin thank you so much for joining and I just pushed it the feedback forms into the chat. They're, so appreciative people would take the time to fill those out um. And myself. I'm I'm in the Whatsapp group and so I'm keen to uh to meet up with anyone or movers um or whatever and help you tell the artist who's so thank you much. No problem, yeah no worries any time uh.