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Awesome, thank you. So we're just gonna, I know we've got an hour today. So I've left some time for any questions and stuff at the end because I feel like that's gonna be the most important bit. But what we're covering is like, why up and going, why choose it as a specialty? Why go through all the stress of all the training, et cetera. What a day in the life of and any doctor involves what the training pathways look like a little bit on the application process. Although I understand potentially could change completely in the next four or five years and then the most important one is portfolio building. So why do we want to go into A and G? It's a, it's a fast paced, it's high intensity is high stress. You are working in the acute situation of potentially very un, poorly, very un, poorly with very poorly women and poorly babies, I guess personally, that's the reason that I love it. You're dealing with women in their most vulnerable position. You're having to manage multiple people and you're working really nicely with the MDT. You really rely on your midwives, you really rely on your nurses to more so than in other specialties. I feel also what I always say to medical students that come and they sort of question me about the stress of you and why you do it, is that whatever job you do, whether it be GP internal medicine surgery, A&E every job you do is gonna be really stressful. You're doing medicine, it's a stressful life. But even outside of medicine, you know, I worked at Sainsbury for a long time and when the tills got busy and there was lots of people could serve that was really stressful too. So, why not do something important? Which in my opinion definitely is. Um, he has to do loads of hands on stuff. So he has to do loads of surgery and he gets to do lots of deliveries such as forceps deliveries, instrumentals, surgical effects. As a student, I was always very much keen that I was not a surgeon and I would never want to do surgery and it just didn't appeal to me, but actually sing for me personally is a lovely dip into surgery without it being your full whole life. It's a complex speciality. You can ease your brain. But also it's not too complex. The population we generally deal with are young fit women who are pregnant. Mm. Well, it's hard. It's, it's the beautiful thing about it's so broad. If you want something more complex. If you want older patients, then someone like Gyne oncology, which will go into a little bit more detail about how you can get into that covers all that. They cover them all complex. A but yeah, generally it's important. It's a great specialty. And I think as well as you go through med school, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here. Obs and Gyne Society. But as you go through med school, you will find for me. Obs and Gyn was the easiest thing to revise. It just clicked and I think that's quite a telling sign of what will work for you. So the day of the life in Oban is almost impossible to describe because it is just so different depending on what you want to go into, depending on what subspecialty, depending on what hospital you're in. Um I'm definitely an obstetrician at heart or at least I think I am so far. Um But a lot of my colleagues uh tolerate obstetrics and do it for the training. But and really wants to do, really wants to do gynecology and really wants to do more surgery. So the what a dental I can involve though is that you can be in clinics, you can be in antenatal gynecology clinics. You can be doing hysteroscopy, you can be doing outpatient surgical, small surgical procedures, you can be doing day lists and gynecology theaters. You can be spending a lot of time on one patient. You can be doing subspecialty and endometriosis you'll, whatever specialty you do, except maybe for GP, you will be doing a ward drug of some point. Um, whether this be the Gyne ward round and antenatal patients or postnatal patients. But you're also dealing with a lot of acute admissions, both in gynecology and obstetrics. And this is again, go straight back to the point that it's a fast paced, quick changing environment. People can bleed very quickly and you have to be someone that can keep their call and manage that. I mean, you don't have to be. I definitely have um some consultants I know who are less good at keeping their call in a very fantastic in other ways. But yeah, and then of course we have lab water, which is either your favorite place or your worst place. It's great. You get to see. Yes, good news. So little of medicine is good news. Whereas obstetrics is you're delivering babies, you're doing nice things to people. Um Yeah, so it's a seven year training pathway. Everyone does their fy one and their Fy two training, um their foundation training and then a at the end of Sy two or like me, if you do F I three and Fy four, then you finally apply to OBS and Gyn. Nice thing about OBS and Gy is, it's run through. So there are no interviews to get your reg jobs. There's no bo bottle necking. Um ST one and ST two are your basic training So when you're at the sho although in ST two, you start to step up to being a registrar and then ST 3456 and seven is when you're registrar in ST five onwards, you can choose to do subspecialty training and that stuff's like fetal maternal medicine, reproductive medicine. Um I'm thinking another one, gyne oncology and that is an interview process and can be quite competitive. But uh it's one of those things, if you want to do it, you just have to put the work in earlier and in your career and then you'll be absolutely grand. The other nice thing about garden is you've only got three exams. So you've got your part one, which is your, er, med school 1st and 2nd year, basic anatomy, basic sort of physiology, absolute pain in the ass. You've got your part two, which is all about your clinical skills and then you've got your part three, which is your oy. So that's nice compared to a lot of specialties where you also have exit exams and specialty exams, et cetera, et cetera. It's a national applications on oral. Like everything is nowadays, it's not a self scoring specialty. So you don't have to write a personal statement, which is nice with Robson G. Just put in your basic details and then everyone does the MRSA M SRA exam, which is uh I don't know if you do, you guys do the SJ anymore, the M Sra exam is a half a situational judgment test and a half a clinical knowledge test based on your um based on an F two level of knowledge. And if you score high enough, you get to go straight for an offer. So you don't need to interview. And if you don't quite score high enough, then you might get an interview. The interview is a very short interview. It's something that you can really prepare for prior to starting. Um You, I can't remember if it was 5 to 10 minutes for a clinical prioritization station where they give you 10 different patients and you have to say who you would see in priority, who I think is most done well. And then you have another 20 minutes station, which is where they ask you four questions, everyone gets asked the same four questions and you have five minutes per per question to answer. Um You essentially prepare everything before you start and should or at least I had a little script or at least a little bullet point of scripts that ensured that I said all the right things to get me the points to get a job. So I went for an I got to interview stage and then got in South Yorkshire in terms of portfolio building. II think it's really hard to say start doing it now when you're in med school because ultimately med school is really fucking hard. Anyway, you guys will have a lot on there. You've got exams to worry about, you've got passing placements to worry about and also just life in general, there's more to life than medicine. However, if you can get some boxes ticked now it does make it easier when applying in the future. Especially if you don't want to take extra years out of training. If you want to just go straight through, I'm sure all of you have heard how competition ratios are the worst they've ever been this year. And it's really hard to get a job anywhere and competition ratios are increasing, but I wouldn't stress it too much because uh still lots of people manage to get work. And if you don't go straight into training, there's lots of other clinical fellows locum, there's loads of stuff you can do rather than go straight through. And I also chose this picture cos I just thought it was really funny that a doctor was listening to the woman's stomach with the stethoscope, which we obviously do not do at all anymore. In terms of personal specification, it will change when you get to training, but it's you can look at it. Now see if you want anything that you can start building up. Um There's four sections to it, clinical skills, academic skills, personal skills, and then commitment specialty and we'll just go through all of those. So your clinical skills essentially is your ability to prioritize and do your sound clinical judgment So that's gonna be your clinical prioritization in interview. They say a desirable characteristic is experience in Oban or specialty as a compliment. Sa every single specialty complements Oban. As long as you sell it the right way in interview, as long as you describe it the right way. Like I did, I was uh doing my three and a four year. I was really undecided between study to be going for A&E versus OB And it took me a long time to finally figure out what I wanted to do. But that A&E experience is invaluable for me being an ob obstetrician, um pregnant women get medical problems as well. Like it's all, all experience is good experience. The only thing I note is if you do take some time out of training and do pure ob gyne stuff such as clinical fellowships, et cetera, you can't do more than two years of obs and Gyne before applying to one. If you do more than two years and you have to apply via the ST three pathway, which is a lot more competitive academic skills. Are your research, your order, your quality improvement and your teaching. Um I did Derby Med site when I was in med school. So I took did an integrated year in reproductive biology, which at the time I wanted to do peds. So I was, I guess I was lucky in a way. Um It was a really good year. It really opened my eyes for a lot of the science behind it and I did manage to get a, a small publication out of it. But if you can get something published, it is worth points. I know it's not worth any points when you're applying to F one F two. But definitely for further training, even if, when you get to, if you decide not to do medicine and you apply to medical training or something, if you apply, sorry, if you decide not to go, you apply to medical training, even if it doesn't count for your first three years of I mt it then will definitely count for your subspecialty. And generally, people don't mind how long ago your publication was. It just sort of shows commitment to specialty in terms of audit. If you can complete an audit cycle, it is worth as many points in the Ob Gyne books as doing a publication and can be significantly less work. I know when I was a GP in final year or maybe fourth year, I can't remember when we do it, I did a audit on contraceptive contraceptives and epilepsy and presented it to the GP practice. And then I just went back a year later and did it again. And it was really straightforward and then I could say I completed an audit cycle on something related to drugs and gurney and then instantly you've got all your take points, you get all your bits. Also when I was in F one day or maybe it was F two when I was in F two, we did an audit in up and down is part of our F two. Like what you have to do to pass F two if two A RCP and um wins the game prize for that. So again, that was more check points. M points. Oh You know what I did do as well in F one which was really worthwhile and got me points. This is it whilst it's not point scoring specialty, it's all these bits during interview which they will take off as, oh, you've done that, you've done that, you've done that. Um But there will be a health education England Foundation Doctors, her uh presentation day. I was down in Bristol and I did a post presentation on some teaching. I did and I did a little questionnaire before the teaching of how comfortable people felt with the subject. And I did a questionnaire afterwards and I made a poster of it and I got to present the poster and I got a certificate saying I did the poster presentation B tick loads of points. And that's you. Again, it's about working smart, not working hard doing. I think completing an audit cycle is something like worth the same amount of points as doing a um uh what's it called? Certificate, medical education, for example. Um Although they don't release how they score each point system, other specialties, you can use their sort of personal specifications, for example, anesthetics, very clear or more dot doesn't get points. But yeah, you don't have to spend thousands on extra courses, et cetera. You just need to do little bits and sell it. Well, um in terms of teaching, make sure you get feedback for every bit of teaching you do. Um and also teaching so easy to arrange and organize and again, loads and loads of points. Great commitment, specialty shows that you enjoy it. Teaching is always good points for whatever you go into. Um During COVID, I did, I ran a six of and GU sessions on essentially on uh various parts of G where none of you had a placement and I did it for the University of Sheffield and some people from Liverpool turned up and some people from Nottingham turned up and therefore I had a national teaching series done. Fox is how you sell it. Uh Yeah, any prizes you get are good. Any prices at all, any publications you can get are good but not essential. I wouldn't stress it too much. And like I said, there are definitely more important things than just building your CV. So try, try not to stress too much personal skills. This is me when I was at UNI and I was social se of the S not the S and G of Squash Society. Um And again, yes, bam, that's showing management and leadership if you can do some voluntary work that always helps. Um Again, a lo a lovely reason again to do to do F three and Fy four, then you can then do some cool stuff outside the medicine. I went to Paris for a month and worked with refugees, did some street medicine which is really cool. Um And yeah, again, organization skills, any achievements you outside outside of medicine will make a big difference and it's just making you stand out from the crowd a little bit. Be a nice smiling face and something a bit different that gets you extra points and then yeah, commitment to the specialty is everything we've just said. Plus doing your elective and, or at least being able to sell your elective as if you didn't. Not s 00, that's my little niece. We have a pig that she hates. She was born last week. Have you? Oh, my gosh. That's very strange, isn't it? Let's stop sharing that. All right. So now let's have a little bit talk and everyone's got access to chat. Has anyone got any questions about that? Because I appreciate it was all a bit of a whirlwind tour. Awesome. Can you explain what a cycle is and how I did it? Yes. So an a cycle or a quality improvement cycle is when it's something you're gonna have to do throughout? I was surprised they were doing more of it during med school, but you definitely have to do it F one, F two. It's where you choose a subject. For example, um contraceptive and epilepsy. You take all your patients within brackets. For example, all age I mine was on all women women of reproductive age between the ages of 2050 that had epilepsy. The wonderful practice. So someone in the practice was able to get me a list of those patients and I looked through their notes and wrote down who um who had epilepsy mother, who was on contraception, he was not on contraception, what contraception they were on. And if it had ever been discussed, you write that, you analyze the data, you present it to whoever, for example, in my case, it was a GP team. And then I suggested some innovations they could do to improve their numbers. Like they should have really 100% of people with epilepsy should have had a talk on contraception was one of my, er, standards. And then, like I said, it came back a year later and re audited it and then pre rep presented it to say if there was any change in the changes that they've made are the ones I'd recommended. What made me choose overs. Uh It's a tricky one. Essentially I didn't, I really wasn't sure in my fy I one and Fy two years, my final year of fy two was four months ig four months of peds. But I, unfortunately, due to COVID I ended up staying with G for eight months, so I never actually did my Peds job. So I'm not sure if maybe I'd be in a different specialty. Had IDP. But I definitely think guy is more suited to me. I like the pace. I like the patience. I like, I just really enjoy the specialty. I don't regret it too. But no start c syndrome properly how to participate in teaching if I'm not in a job, oh, you can do teaching to toe doesn't necessarily need to be to s and got any colleagues. It can be, for example, for the kind of society it can be through medical school, you can just contact the medical schools locally and explain that you want to do teaching sessions and put out a zoom or a, what was it called? Sorry, I'm pregnant and I've got baby bread. Uh What do we use MS teams and have people join and it's really straightforward. You just need to find people to spread the message essentially. Does that make sense if I'm not, if my answers aren't answering your questions, just message again? Are there any other many opportunities in research in S and G as I want to look in an academic career? Absolutely. Yes. It's huge loads of money going to s and G at the moment as well. Um Sorry, I don't know much about the research parts of it just cos it's something that I'm probably not going to go into so much. But, um, yeah, there's loads, there's academic, uh, clinical fellowship jobs in and, and you can do those both in from the start from ST one. And you can also do it from ST three. You can also, I've got a friend who's took a year out to do a master's. I know someone who's done a phd. There's loads, loads, loads. What did I do during my 53 and 54 years? Oh, I didn't work very much. I had a great time. Um I couldn't recommend doing extra years more. It's wonderful. Um I did a lot of A&E again, it was just during COVID time. So I didn't manage to do as much traveling as I wanted. But I've probably worked six months, only six months. I was a Gynae, six months, only six months. I was a Gynae. But then again, like I said earlier, I did a year in Paris working with refugees doing street medicine and I also did um I was trapped on South America for a few weeks. But yeah, it was great. II didn't work much. I didn't save anything. I just spent money, work, life balance, loves and go in your health of the on call. Um The worklife balance is tricky throughout medicine no matter what you do. And I think a degree of it is time and practice of how do you manage your work and life. Um for example, an fy one, it will feel completely overwhelming. Like, oh you do in medicine and it's really hard as you progress through your training and things are easier and you use up sort of less brain space on all your decisions. It gets easier and, and I'm not gonna lie. Obviously, you could take obs and gy home when bad things happen. It's shit because you're working with young well women. Um, but it's about building up the supports and building up the skills of how to manage it. No compared to when you're a doctor. But ultimately all all specialties struggle with work life balance. Um The people who I know take most of their work home are gps and stereotypically, they are meant to have a bit of a better one in terms of how often on calls are. It's depends on your way. You're working when I was in Rotherham. I did one in 3 to 1 in four weekends. So I did a weekend every month, whether that be day or night. Um, typically do an on call every week. Um I work 80% and have done from the get go. Um And again, couldn't recommend it more just having an extra day off and that's slightly less on calls is fantastic. And you only need to local once a month to bring your pay up to full time anyway. And I'm progressing at the same rate as everyone else. So it's not even like it affects that. But, yeah. Yeah, the work life balance in and go is tricky. The worklife balance in all of medicine is tricky. It sort of depends on you. Um, and time, how much delivering do you actually do on my first midwife's LAT? Oh, you do a, you do a lot, you do a lot of delivering. You do a lot of instrumental deliveries. You don't do many normal deliveries. Most of the normal deliveries are by your midwives. However, I've been on Labor Ward this week and I've delivered at least 3 to 4 babies every day, whether that be ac section of one tooth or a forceps. But again, I at Jesse's Wing, which probably has, I don't know, 11 births a day, maybe, probably more, probably more like 20 births a day. And so you do do a lot of delivery. Um but you don't do lots of nice normal deliveries, either a couple. Is it likely that you'll have to move to a new area to get into a training position? Depends on where you want to train. Sheffield. South Yorkshire is not particularly competitive. I mean, it's, it's all relative, so it's not particularly competitive with S and G OBS and Gy is a relatively competitive specialty to get into. But um if you wanted to be in London or Bristol, then obviously the competition ratios are much higher. But again, that's across the board, whatever you would want to go to. How does it work in terms of being able to progress at the same rate of people working full time. So this is a relatively sorry, Megan, I'm passing your question because I think I answered it earlier. But if you want to ask it again, do for me, but more specific. Does that make sense? Ok. Um But anyway, sorry, let see, how do I say so? Hea so health education in England across the board have said that all specialties should be competency based and not time based, which specialties are deciding this compared to which specialties are not is tricky. And it also depends unit to unit in South Yorkshire. Our training program director, Doctor Lowe is really supportive of us um going through as quickly or as slowly as we need to progressing as slowly as needed to. So I've got all my competencies signed off. Therefore, I can a RCP or progress to the next year at the same time as everyone else. And if I didn't have my competencies signed off, it would obviously be different and I'd be given an extension. But whether you're full time or part time, there are times when you won't have all your competencies signed off because life gets in the way and life is really hard. So yeah, technically the whole of health education English do it. In reality. It's very variable. Olson Cool. Any other questions before or any questions that people want answering more, et cetera. Any advice on getting involved in research as a med student. Oh, Charlotte, I feel you. I found it so, so tricky. I was constantly asking cos I and wanting to and II sort of found in the end, it felt a bit like luck as to asking the right person essentially, which is a really shitty answer, but I didn't manage to solve it. Doing my B med sci and the year out definitely helped um the projects that I so II went to Edinburgh for a year and joined the final year of the reproductive biology course. So just everyone else was just doing pure rep biology. I joined as the final year integrated. And I didn't particularly choose a particularly researchy path in that, but I could have gone more down much more down the researchy route if that makes sense. Um But no, I'm trying to think that's a few, there's a consultant called Mr Jess who does a lot of research and she's wonderful and will, she does a unfortunately, so uh she's called Sweaty Joe. I will copy her email into her because it's always worth just emailing people, you know. Oh, I completely lost everything. OK. Always worth just emailing people who do research, emailing professors, email II Chinese and finding out if any of them will let you get involved. But um no, I found it very tricky. All salts are available to go and experience to in their free year. Um There are def, I'm trying to think so. In South Yorkshire there are definitely some, um, trust grade positions open. Um, for example, I know Ro, every year does a TCA position where you essentially go and you work in Singa for the, for the year for the six months and it's, it's nice. It's fine. There's no, I'm trying to think if there's any particular jobs that sort of have like a, like in their medicine, there's lots of sort of medical education jobs plus different specialties. But in S and G that I can think of, I don't think Sheffield do them, they definitely do long term low positions, they definitely do long term clinical fellows. Um But yeah, also just um it's remember, it's not necessarily just s and gurney, especially like you can relate back to obs and gurney. So any gum specialties, any medical specialties, anything that you do that gets you extra experience from medical education to research to anything interesting. As long as you can, as long as you prepare, how you can feed that back to how that's relevant to and g it'll be good all experiences, a good experience if you get involved in the role of research and my, and what we will be. Uh I'm, I'm not entirely sure. I think it probably depends on the research, the person you're working with. Um I know my friend who's currently doing neonatology, she's an academic clinical fellow in Peds. And when she was in med school. She got, she managed to sort of get in with and do a lot of them. I want, I wanna say like biochemical research. So she did a lot of cells and stuff. But um again, I think it depends on, on the research and who you're talking to, how important it is to get and, and foundation is, uh it is as important as you make it if you can get A and G job, great, it will help you secure. If you want to do this in the future. At the same time, it's not an essential uh by any means. Um It's not essential criteria. It is desirable. And like I said, you know, you can get a job in GP and say I had a job in GP and I really like to and going so one session in every month, I followed the nurse with smear clinics or one session a month. I it, yeah, I mean, you can, you need to just to play the system. So if you get an off and going job, great. If you don't, it's not the end of the world. Just our interview, sell it. Um Is there any non research based things you would recommend doing as me students? I was like, yes, everything teaching have fun, voluntary stuff. Life outside of medicine societies just live like we're talking about sort of, you know, it's to get into up and going training it feels like huge things. Any training to get past med school feels huge at the moment. But once you do it, you realize there's so much more, uh, oh, I'm being a bit deep. There's so much more you can do so much more. You need to do, working with people. You need to have worked with people. Sorry, I'm definitely in need of dinner. What am I trying to say? I did a lot of work working with people with disabilities. I did a lot of voluntary stuff working with people with disabilities throughout my time as a teenager and med school. And that means that if someone comes in to a guy who has a disability or has a challenging lifestyle, then that automatically its easier to relate to them and you can know how to communicate with people better. So yeah, but from what I said earlier, any teacher you can do always looks good and it's fairly easy to organize um any societies you can join. Oh, good. I'm not from the UK. So how to do volunteering um in the UK or just in the UK. You can the Sheffield, for example, in Sheffield, the Sheffield City Council have a page as to volunteering opportunities there are um but if you just Google like voluntary groups in the area, they pretty much always will have some if you Google stuff that you're particularly interested in, for example, um I used to teach swimming to people with disabilities and googling local disabled swimming clubs and just emailing the people in charge and explaining that you want to volunteer. You want to help out. Uh Yeah, that's how I did it. But um, I'm not sure if that's the same universally. Any other questions at all? How involved F two s have to get to be? Oh, that's really dependent on again, the area where you're working. So I know that there was a rotation of jobs. I think they're still there where you get to do OB Gy and Barnsley and F one. And that's a fantastic job. And if you tell them that you want to do some gy, they will get you so involved, they will really utilize you. You'll get to do stuff on Labor Ward, you'll get to do C sections. You'll get to be really, it's a great job. Hobson Gy in as an F two in Jessup is unfortunately a lot more service provision based and you can often find yourself just stuck on the wards or stuck in triage and you'll occasionally get to get help out in sections, particularly out of hours, but it's definitely not as supportive as trying to facilitate you to do ups and down as a career just because it is so busy. Um And in those cases, you want to attach yourself to one of the registers or one of the senior doctors. And um yeah, you're an F one F to Barley next year. Awesome. You'll have a wonderful time and you will do OBS and Gyn for sure. Anyone who really loves and Gy and has got a Jessop's job. Um, remember that you still love it after your placement because it can be hard work at times. Um, in terms of Barley though, just let them know early on that you want to do and they will, I've heard fantastic things. I, well, there, local there a few times. It's a great place to local and work. Any other questions at all? What sort of responsibilities do you getting your first year of some going trainee? So you're really well supported when you first start. Um in the district generals, you'll probably be getting stuff like you will do the postnatal ward round. So you have to review all your postnatal patients and uh do discharge planning for them. You'll be seeing patients who come into triage, both acute gynecology and acute obstetric problems. There's people with miscarriages, PV, bleeding pain, um threatened preterm labor, pelvic girdle pain, high premesis, all your classic S and G problemss you'll be looking after. Um So I'm just going away from the dogs, the dogs thing one second. Um You will, what was I saying? You'll be helping out with C sections. You should be doing stuff like per or P, this is my dog, say hello, your pain. Um But you'll be really, really well supervised. You won't be expected to do anything on your own and there's always gonna be senior trainees on and available for you to ask questions to. So it's a nice specialty in terms of support, especially when you compare. So for it to medicine, for example, what's your dog called? This is Angus. He is a bloody nightmare and the smelliest dog in Sheffield. He's also a baby. Ok. Thank you. He's not lovely. He's a pain in the ass But yeah, become a doctor and then you can get a doc. Awesome. Any other questions at all? I appreciate it. Um It's a, it's tricky, isn't it? Because also, you know, and G training might be a few years away for a lot of you. So it's tricky to know what, how things will change by. Then these sorts of talks used to always get me so stressed with the med students. So I hope none of you feel stressed. I know that there's lots and lots of time and if you're f one or F two, then you'll smash it and I put my email in the child. So if anyone has any questions that they didn't feel comfortable asking in the group or if you want any more help with CBS or anything, you can always just send me a message. He's really uncomfortable because I've got a bump now. So it's just like can't get as close as he wants. Uh Thank you so much, Becca. That was really um interesting. And informative. Um And thank you for answering the questions and thank you for everyone asking the questions. Um Everyone will get a feedback form at the end of the session to fill out um and to, and then that way you'll get the certificate. Um And we also have two more really exciting talks lined up. So we have one on the fourth of March by Doctor Jamie mcconnell on menopause. And then we have another one on March 18th about academic career specifically in Singye with Doctor Anna Harvey Bloomer. Um And we'd love to see you all there and please remember to fill out the feedback forms. Um Thank you so much, Becca. Not at all. Thank you, my love. Thank you. Bye all.