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you want me to? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Here we go. Go ahead. Hey. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another week's webinar. This time we're stepping up from being a register and looking at the next stage of training, which is your fellowship and beyond. We've got a number of great speakers who are going to go through the different stages post CCT. Essentially, Um, there's a little bit of a change in the order that had gone out initially. And our first speaker is going to be Mister Wimhurst. He's one of the consultants and previous clinical lead, uh, North Generic Hospital. And so he's going to talk about preparing for your consultant post. So we're going a little bit further ahead to come back a bit and then progress forward again. So it's a pleasure to introduce Mr Wimhurst, and he's talking about going to a consultant post. Thanks, Rachel. Um, thank you very much for the invitation to talk this evening. Um, I apologize in advance. I'm afraid I've had a little bit of a computer nightmare, so I'm going to be sharing via biggie, because I'm now on my iPad as my trust computer has just died um, so, uh, applying for a consultant job. I've been involved in a lot of, uh, consultant interviews over the last almost 20 years as a consultant. And so these are just some of my thoughts. It's not a comprehensive, but these are just some things that I think you should bear in mind when applying for a consultant job. Next slide, please. I feel a bit Chris witty, um, things to consider. Um, have you worked in the hospital before? Um, it's a very big step to take a consultant job somewhere out of region. And if you haven't worked in the hospital or even in the region, absolutely. Go and visit the place beforehand. Get a feel of what the hospitals like, what the areas like and make sure you're not applying to to go somewhere where you're really not going to be happy. This is the next 25 years, at least of your your life and your the most important part of your career. Um is the job appropriate for your skill set? You know, look at the job description. Is it going to be Are you a hand surgeon shoulder surgeon? Does it have a large proportion of the job that involves that. What is the trauma commitment going to be like? Are you going somewhere? Are you somebody with great trauma skills? And you're going somewhere with a very small, uh, trauma intake where everything gets shipped down the road to an MTC. Are you going to be satisfied working in a place like that or vice versa? You're going somewhere where your you know, 30 40% of your life is going to be involved in dealing with a lot of trauma. Uh, and is that something that you you want to do? Uh, what's the department like? You've got to put out feelers if you haven't worked there and find out what the consultant colleagues are like and it is very different working in a place as a consultant compared to working there as a registrar, you need to know that particularly in the first few years of your your consultant life, if you have a difficult case or difficult patient or a problem, you have colleagues who will come and help you in theater, who you can ask opinions of in clinic and are generally going to ease your way into taking responsibility. Um, so talk to friends and contacts in the area. Don't have to be within the department if you know, a general surgeon or a urologist or a diabetologist in the hospital. Find out how that orthopedic department works. Uh, what's the area like? This is really, really important. This is, You know, this is the next big chunk of your life. Are you going to be happy living in that area? Do you really want to apply there and think about the life choices that go along with a consultant job for a long period of your life? What's the commute going to be like if you don't want to live, You know, close to to the hospital? What are the house prices like? Can you afford to live there? One of the schools, like, if you've got kids, um, activities, You know, What do you like doing in your spare time? If you like sailing? Um, you know, around the coast, there's no point in applying for a job in Leicester. If you hate to see there's no point in going to great. Yeah, you know, just think about things like that. What are the opportunities like for other members of your family. Um, if you, you know, a lot of us have spouses or partners who are also doctors. If you go to somewhere that's a very isolated hospital, you're really narrowing the opportunities for your your partner or your spouse to apply to places unless it's a big hospital where you think they are going to be. Opportunities for them. Um, if it is something you're interested in, what are the private practice opportunities or opportunities to do additional work? However, having said that, one of the pieces of advice I always give to people applying to consultant posts or newly appointed colleagues is Do not plan your lifestyle based on additional income over and above your consultants salary. Uh, that way that's the path to unhappiness. So plan your lifestyle based on what you can afford on your consultants salary. Next slide, please. Um, application form. Um, these days they're normally on NHS jobs rather than in the back of the BMJ. Um, you can always send your CV to the service director in the hospital that you're applying to, but the short listing will not be done on that CV. It will be done on an anonymized application form. And unfortunately, on NHS jobs, these are not consultant post specific. They're not even doctors specific, so their their application forms that are used for all Allied medical professions. So it's sometimes difficult to know what to put in which box. But if you take one thing home from this evening, it's read the person's specification and make sure you hit 100% of the essential criteria. The patient person specification is normally in a sort of a an Excel spreadsheet type box at the end of the application form, and it will have one column of essential criteria and one column of the desirable. Unless you hit just about all of the essential criteria, you're not going to get short listed. So make sure that you, including the application, form all of that information, even if there is nowhere obvious in the application form. To put it, put it in the additional information at the end. Uh, next slide pleasingly, uh, if the job description asked for logbook numbers and they often do, it will often say something like, uh, extensive experience in hip surgery with log book numbers put in your log book numbers. This is the number of hip replacements I have done. Supervised. Yeah, as the lead surgeon, this is the number of revisions I've done. Do not just attach a real log book. That's a common thing that people do. But it normally only goes onto one form that goes to medical staffing and then medical staff in for Would the link to your NHS jobs application. And, funnily enough, the log book doesn't often attach. So put the information in in the application form itself, even if that log book is attached at the end. It's another thing for the short list to to open and go through. And if you're looking at 25 applications for the same job, the one that says I've done lots of hip replacements and revisions is going to get the tick in the box. Um, you may need to what I used to, uh, mark people down on for double dipping, which is if you've done a presentation at the Cambridge Orthopedic Club and then a presentation on the same thing at the Hip Society or the B O. A and then published on that paper. I used to count that as one piece of research, which is what it is. But these days, the application form will often say presentations relating to hip surgery publications relating to hip surgery, in which case it's perfectly reasonable to put the same project down in more than one box. Okay, um, if you've got a higher degree, that will almost always get you some additional points in the desirable criteria rather than not the essential, particularly if it's sub specialty related, and particularly if you have published from that higher degree. If you've done an MD PhD course as a medical student, it's still a really great thing. But it it's going to be less likely that it's going to get you an enormous number of additional points because it's unlikely that that will be related to what you're applying for, uh, teaching. If you're into teaching, make a big thing of it in the application form. Most department are very, very happy to have somebody joined them. Who is going to drive there teaching forward? So it's a really positive thing if you've got a PG, see or run courses for the region or nationally, or been involved in you know, sort of arranging courses. Make sure that goes in because it's looked upon very favorably. Next slide, please. So management experience? Um, there is a box on management experience on NHS jobs. And yes, you will get probably the essential criteria if you say you've been on the two day BMA management course, Mattingly or whatever it's now called. But that's not really what they're looking for. They're looking for, um, senior residents program, having done training in management or be done a keel course that that kind of thing. You know that the higher level management will certainly score you more points audit. It's pretty much unacceptable not to have got six audits done in your time as an S p R. Make sure you list those six in order. Most of the applications will ask you to have completed a loop and make sure that there are a couple of completed loops, and you make it very clear that that is the case. Uh, it's even better if at least in your last couple of years, those your audits are subspecialty related. You know, you've done a, um, uh, an audit on the management or, you know, sort of collection of dash stores if you're a hand surgeon or you know you've done something relating to to knees if you're a knee surgeon, because that that will just mark you out rather than somebody who's done yet another fracture neck of the femur audit, um, the additional information box comes at the end, and it's very tempting to right an enormous amount of information in that I would limit it to two or three paragraphs saying Why you're the right person for the job and that's basically I've done the training for this. You know, I've done a fellowship in shoulder surgery. I've done a lot of shoulder operating. I'm very interested. I'm very good at fixing proximal humerus fractures. And I will take that on for the department, uh, and then say Why you want to come to my knowledge or Cambridge or it's switch or Peterborough or wherever and say why that hospital particularly suits you and why you think you'll be good in that department and leave it at that so often you get, you know, 10,000 word essays at the end. And again, if you're going through 25 applicants, you tend to get a little bit bored with those. I'm wonderful. Just asked me, um, next slide, please. So what happens then is is, once the job closes, the applicants will be shortlisted blind by three or four short listers normally, and those people will almost certainly be on the panel. Scores are given for the essential and desirable criteria separately, and then the overall scores are dotted up. If you don't get all or almost all of the central criteria, you won't be shortlisted. The short listing is then normally done. Of the people who have got all of the essential criteria are then scored. And there's no point in interview viewing 10 people for one post if somebody scored 64 out of 68 somebody else's scraped through with 42 because you know the person who scored 42 isn't going to get a look in that interview, so most trusts will only short list the best 3234 candidates for the for the job. And it used to be that there was there could be a legal challenge if you didn't get short listed and you met all the essential criteria Foundation trusts are not required to shortlist everybody who meets the essential. So if you don't get short listed, it's because you haven't scored as highly as several other people who are who are above you on the short list thing. Next slide, please. Eddie. So, visiting in a lot of the job advert, it will say whether in formal visits are encouraged prior to short listing. Um, our jobs always are, and we like people to come and see us. Excuse me. Sometimes you get people who don't come and see you before short listing who do get short listed anyway because they're very good on their CV. And you ask them, Why didn't you come and have a look around the department? You've never worked here and they say, Oh, I didn't think I should come before the short listing was done. If it's if it's unclear, send an email to the service director and say, Can I come and have a chat with you and have a look around the department and it It would be a very weird department and said, Oh, no, no, You know, you never worked in knowledge, but we don't want to see you we'll just short list you on a form. So, um do go and visit, particularly if you're not known in the, uh in the hospital and go and visit if you have worked there, because if you don't, it seems a bit weird. Um, once shortlisted, put the work in and really important. Don't just go and see the service director. And the to hand surgeons in the department, if you're applying for a hand post, make appointments well in advance, particularly the managerial people, their diaries get very bogged up quite a long time in advance. And quite often people will say, Well, I did try and speak to the chief executive in the medical director and they said they had no time. Well, that's because you didn't get in touch with them early enough. Uh, next slide, please. So this this is not completely comprehensive, and I may have forgotten people, but these are the people that I think you need to talk to before you Your interviewed. Not at the pretty short listing. This is once you've been shortlisted the chief executive, and quite often they're difficult to pin down. And if you can't, there are some other good people to talk to in the senior management team, like the chief operating officer or the chief financial officer if the CEO isn't available. And certainly those that the latitude are often really good people to talk to you because you'll get an idea of what the problems are financially from the CFO. Uh, back back. A slide, please. Itchy. Thank you. Um, medical director. And if you can't get a hold of the medical director chief of surgery, most hospitals now have somebody in between the medical director and the service director of the department. Go and see the chief nurse, director of nursing and the cops manager for the department that you're applying to. But then make sure you go and see and find out what the problems are from the ward. Sister, the clinic sister, the theater lead nurses. They are really important sources of information for your interview. When you're asked what are the challenges in this hospital, you can say Well, when I was talking to just in Warren, the orthopedic theaters, he tells me this, and you know it sounds really good and it makes you stand out to somebody who not only is interested in the hospital, but cares about what the people who work there think, um if you're applying for a job with a large trauma, uh, component, talk to the the leads in, uh, the emergency department and the plastics department. Um, same thing, you know, talk to the most recent consultant appointment and see what they were asked an interview. Even if there hasn't been a recent appointment in orthopedics, find out who's been most recently appointment appointed in other surgical specialties, the managers and the medical director on your panel are likely to ask the same questions if you're applying to trust. And we all are now as part of an ICS talk to the lead to an orthopedics in the other hospitals in the ICS and find out what the challenges are from their perspective. Okay, next slide, please. So what to ask of these people, find out what the challenges are to the hospital and the department, particularly financially, Uh, these people may be able to provide you with, but you can also find out on your own the CQ. See, reports get reports. Remember, there are reports in trauma in elective orthopedics in pediatric orthopedics and in spinal surgery. So it's not just the General Orthopedic one. For for the hospital you're applying to GMC training surveys are available. Local training surveys are available and interesting National hip fracture Data base. I don't think I've been on an interview panel in the last few years where the candidates haven't been asked about hip fractures even if they're applying as hand surgeons. N j r. Report If you are applying as an arthroplasty surgeon of any sort, and then I CS plans, uh, and there may well be an ICS, uh, clinical director for the three Trust now. And if there is, make sure you go and find out. Find out what the plans are. So that's just about it. Um, what I sort of think you need to have in mind and have planned before you apply for a job. And once you've applied and been shortlisted, I'm very happy to to field any questions. I'm afraid I have to leave fairly soon this evening. So apologize for that. Thank you, Mr Wimhurst. That was, uh, slightly terrifying the number of people that you need to go and speak to, but I'm really really helpful. I don't know if there's any questions from the audience for Mr Wimhurst does. He has a celebratory evening to him. Um, but I'm sure if there aren't just now as we go along in the evening, if there are questions, we have lots of consultants who have been through the interview process recently or slightly further away, and they'll be able to answer any questions. If there isn't anything just now, it doesn't look like it. Silence. Okay, thank you so much. So that was really good, guys. I hope the rest of the evening goes Well, thank you. Enjoy your, um, So we have learned what we need to do when we're coming up to a consultant interview. But there's a whole stage before that, which is your fellowship, which is one of the most exciting parts of your training and Children. Orthopedics, I think. Personally coming up to it. Um, And so we've got Ms Spacey, who you'll know from previous weeks Webinars and various other endeavors of hers. Um, she's currently on fellowship, so she's going to talk to us about why you should do a fellowship and preparing for it. Thank you. Just to double check. Can you see my first slide? We can see your screen rather than the sides. Iggy, do you want to screen share then? Because I think I'm not going to get it to fix. I've tried achy. Yeah. Why are you setting it up? I'm on my second fellowship at the moment. So my first fellowship was in Stanmore, uh, doing sarcoma work. And I'm now on my second fellowship doing pelvic and hip reconstruction up in writing turn. I've not long had my consultant interviews and have a substantive post in knowledge to start in the new year, so it's quite a stressful period of time. I'm just as you see, CT. And it's this continual kind of six months to kind of up to two years process of getting through to this stage. And I don't think we really talk about it enough early on in our training. And it comes as a little bit of a shock to the system when it all of a sudden appears. So hence the point of this webinar tonight. Um, slide, please. Eggs. Yep. Just click through for a few times. Eggs. Good. So you really need to thinking about what it is that you want to get from your fellowship. When you start thinking about how you're going to prepare for it, keep clicking and really the kind of things you want to start thinking about what kind of fellowship you want to go go on to. Okay, um, realistically, you want to do something in your subspecialty and wanting to work in a major trauma, so you might also want to do a trauma fellowship. And so, in time preparation times, you then have to start thinking about how much time you're going to allocate to each of those types of fellowships. And then there's different types of fellowships, which are going to come to a in a minute, Um, and we'll talk through that little in the process. Once you figure out what kind of type of fellowship you want to do, you need to start thinking about the bigger picture. And some of that will be family and thinking about what your spouse or your partner might be doing while you're on fellowship. What the Children might do keep clicking again. Oh, and where you want to go. Okay, that might be that you want to do a fellowship close to home in your region where you might want to be working in the future. It might be that you're wanting to do a fellowship in the same country that you live, but a little further further away, or even further a field and going abroad to get an experience of a different healthcare system, a different area of the world, maybe somewhere that you maybe want to settle into the future or just for the experience. And then you also need to be thinking about the finances of being able to fund. Whatever your type of fellowship that you choose to do is bearing in mind that you're most likely to take a pay cut and you're most likely to start occurring more costs than usual next. So the type of fellowship we've already kind of selective or trauma you might want to be doing both for me going away on my sarcoma fellowship. It was to learn a very specific skill set. So I enjoy hit provision surgery, and really, that fellowship was to gain experience in Endo prosthetics. Um, you might be thinking that you might want to go on a robotic fellowship, for example, the other types of fellowship There are ones that are high volume and low complexity, which might be something. I think it's coming out of Cove if you're greater experience operating or having an independent operating list to build your confidence and be able to run a theater list as a consultant. Or you might be looking for a fellowship that has a big name and to be able to make use of their networks and their research abilities. And that might be something that's really good for your CV. If you're particularly academic or wanting to go into an educational type role, Uh, and sometimes you get the magical unicorn and you get all three, where you learn a very specific skill set. You have high volume and independence, and there's good research opportunities. But like unicorns, they're quite rare. And the final thing to think about is, are you actually looking for a job in the place that you want to go on fellowship? Are you using this as an opportunity to explore that region, for example, Next. Yeah, I take through a few times, so the kind of things that I think about when you're preparing for fellowship. Uh, do you feel are you socially ready to go away on a fellowship? Have you made a range for where you're going to live? How your family are going to be cared for while you're away on fellowship? A lot of us have got animals and things like that to take into consideration. And then are you financially ready? You're, as I said, mostly going to take a cut in pay, um, and have more costs. Do you feel clinically ready? And do you feel mentally ready? So we're going to go talk through each of these. Next? Yeah, I take through. So from a social point of view, your living arrangements My first fellowship, I could commute to stand more. It was about an hour and 20 minutes a day, and that was that was perfectly fine and workable. You might need to be thinking about moving away and renting or for me. At the moment. I'm renting somewhere, and I have my mortgage at home as well. Um, keep clicking eggs. And it's really start thinking about how you're going to fund that earlier rather than later. In terms of family, you might be thinking about whether you're going to start dividing your time and going home on weekends but actually spending the week away on fellowship, and you'll probably hear some of that from one of our speaker's a little bit later on, or you might all be going altogether. And again. I think one of our speakers will talk about that as well, in terms of family arrangements. If you've got Children and you're gonna have to start planning if they're at school or if they're at nursery in this area, is your spouse going to start working in the area? Or are they going to be responsible for looking after the Children because you've lost your social network in terms of your normal child care arrangements? And actually, if you care for parents or family members that are unwell, how you're going to then factor all of this into your fellowship as well Pet arrangements. I've had friends that have flown their animals out to Australia and New Zealand in the past and had to go through all of the quarantine side of things, Um, and so it's another thing to factor in, keep clicking, and these are my babies who got settled in quite quickly. But again, it's another thing to factor in. When you're looking at renting, do they accept animals, for example? Um, from a financial point of view, fellowship at time is actually quite expensive. The most likely salary in the UK because you're not on an encore. Rotor is about 52,000, up to about 58,000. Uh, and it generally comes at a time where you've had quite high expenses already. And actually your expenses are starting to go up. So you just paid for your F. R C s and any courses that go along with that, um, you're just about to pay your CC TV, which, if any of you don't know is coming for you about just over 500 lbs. But you can claim the tax back on that specifically, uh, and as well. You're having an increase in your college fees because you just passed your FSH? Yes. So my advice to you is to start planning a nest egg earlier in your training and start thinking about setting some money aside for when it comes to your examine your fellowship and obvious ways of doing that or things like Slocum's and waiting list initiatives. Um, thinking about it early. I have had some colleagues, every mortgage to be able to go on fellowship and release some equity from the house, for example, Um, and one other source of income that's quite good at registrar levels is a lot of sporting activities require medical care at ringside and things like this, Um, and that's also a really good source of an extra income, if you need it next slide. From a clinical point of view, it really comes down to the type of fellowship that you're thinking about going on. So if you're looking for increasing your confidence because you're coming out of covert and there haven't been that many elective lists for you, you might be thinking about how you can get as much access as possible making use of the private sector cases, um, and trying to go in on your time off on weekends to perhaps help with the junior registrars training, but also to then take on more of the complex trauma cases for yourself. Um, and then that will help you become more ready to go away on your fellowship. The more competent you are in your basic subspecialty cases. When you go on fellowship, the quicker it is that you'll move onto independent cases. And the more complex case is that you've gone there to specifically learn about realistically the ways about going around. This is maximizing your training opportunities, which you're probably already trying to do, trying to get some independent experience. And I think it's often easier to try to get that experience in in trauma as opposed to elective at the moment, with the elective recovery process still going on. So I think it's good to try and prioritize managing the trauma list independently, at least as the beginning to that independence for when you go on fellowship and getting the books out and really reading around your subspecialty. So you're now at a time where you don't need to be reading about everything else. So, uh, you know, as a hip surgeon, I don't need to read around foot and ankle like I was for the FSGs. But it's actually quite interesting how to pick up and start reading very specifically about the cases that I'm interested in. So from a bone tumor point of view, That was a really important preparation for my sarcoma fellowship, and it's really use to reach out to the department that you're going to, particularly to find out what type of kit they use. Um, so you'll find when you start off on fellowship, you might be using new kit working in theaters that you don't know with people that you don't know in an area that you don't know. And you've lost your social network because you've moved away for a while. And actually it can be quite a lonely time to begin with and so familiarizing yourself with as many things as you can before you go. It's actually quite a good way of preparing, and I guess that falls into Are you mentally ready? So I think most of us coming towards the end of our CCT feel a bit tired and exhausted. You just spend all your time sorting out your F. R. C s examination, applying for your fellowship, sorting out your your final a ercp, and you are just exhausted. And as I said you are away from family is an entirely new um, life experience going away on fellowship, and it is really exciting, But there are times where it does sometimes feel a bit lonely and just making sure that you're in the right headspace before you go away on fellowship. Keep going next. So it's a stressful time, and it's just really important that you make sure that you have had a break after your exam and your c CT. Most importantly, that you've appropriately celebrated the fact that you've achieved what you set out to achieve. Um, don't let that one kind of slipped past you, so to speak. And, um, think about whether those things actually influence whether you'd want to go abroad for your fellowship to incorporate a holiday and a break before you then come back and start as a consultant. Lovely. So that's kind of my summary of the kind of things that you should be thinking about when you start preparing for your fellowship. Um, and have you take any questions? But I can't see that there's any in the chat at the moment, but feel free to type them in. And, uh, for them, uh, in the group chat. Lovely. We have Ms Fisher next, who is one of our s t A. Trainees. in the east of England. She's just the CT. Go away on her fellowship soon out in New Zealand, and she's going to talk to you about how to apply for a fellowship. Okay. Can you see my slide? Yes. Good. Okay. Finally got something to work? Um, So as Kate said, I'm Rachel. I'm one of the s t eight, and I'm going to talk about how to find and apply for a fellowship. Um, I have a disclaimer at the beginning of this presentation. Um, I have applied for eight fellowships. I've interviewed for three, and I have to lined up. However, I've also had office for six, so the math doesn't quite add up, but this is the whole process of applying for a fellowship. It's not like applying for any other job that you've applied for in the past. Um, and so it's a really different process, and one that I think I was really lucky to have lots of supporting people who tried to help me through it. Um, but as you come to see during my presentation, I took a slightly security route. That that happens to be how I do most things. Um so overall, this might be a case of Do what I say and not what I do. But hopefully you'll have learned something by the end of this as to how to make your process a little bit easier. Um, so I think it kind of touches on a lot about what Kate has previously just said. But there are a number of factors to think about when you're applying for your fellowship. So for me, mine was Where do I want to go? Which is because I like traveling. But also what specialty do you want to do? What do you want to focus on? Like Eight said, Do you want to do high volume? Do you want to do do more of the complex stuff? Do you want to do a research based fellowship? It all depends on what you see your career trajectory panning out to be. It's really important to think about who you know who might be able to help with this process. There is a infinite resource within your own department. In terms of more senior colleagues in the registrar cohort consultants within the department, colleagues who have worked with in other departments and just people who know somebody on the, you know, the other side of the world who might be doing a fellowship that they think you might be interested in. So talk to people and they will give you advice. They might not give you the advice that you want to hear or the advice that you eventually take, and and everybody has their own opinion about fellowships. But it's useful to get those opinions, especially at the beginning when you're thinking about it. Um, like Kate said, you have to think about the other considerations that you as an individual, may have and not everybody is the same. And not every fellowship fits everybody else's personality. Um, I think Kate's talk, uh, kind of brought it home. That probably I should've planned a nest egg. Looking at how much fellowships going to cost, but not only for the financial side of things. International fellowships fill up at least two years in advance and increasingly, in the UK, UK fellowships or filling up two years in advance. I I have to fellowships planned. The second one is next August, and I interviewed for that over six months ago. So think about it quite often, Trust will interview for the two years, two consecutive years rather than the one that's just about to start but don't display. There's always an option. People's plans change. Pandemics will happen, which will change plans when you least expect it, and jobs will open up when you're not expecting them to. So if you haven't got a fellowship planned and it's within the next two years, there will be a whole host of options available. So please don't worry if you aren't somebody who's planned that far ahead. But if you know there's something specific you want to do, it's always worthwhile trying to get in their early Um, so I think the first question you need to ask yourself is, What? What do you want to do? A fellowship in? It doesn't need to be too specific. So you might know that you want to be a foot and ankle surgeon. You might know that you want to be a shoulder and elbow, said um, that's a great place to start. Look at the resources around you. Your bosses seen your colleagues and people you trust find out where they went. Did they enjoy it? My slight caveat to that will be You won't come across many people who say they hated their fellowship. Um, but would they recommend it? And that sometimes there's a bit of internal self reflection to that person about Yes, they had a great time. But was it because they were living in Sydney and got to go and watch the fireworks on New Year's Eve? Or was it that they actually love the job that they were doing? If they really did, do they have a contact? Word of mouth is so important with these things, and we'll come to that in a little bit as well. Um, all of the sub specialty societies have information about fellowships. So this is the British Ship Society website. They have a whole page on fellowships, and they have specific British hip society ones for training. But they also have contacts for other ones similarly viscous for Children's orthopedics. They have a list of contact details, and the spine surgeons do the same thing. My success tip number one, was that I approached mentors and spoke to senior colleagues within the department I've worked in and ask them about their fellowship experience. they gave me top advice on what I could do. And based on that, those are the fellowships that I applied for. Um, I found out that prior to having an informal discussion or an interview, all of the fellowships I applied for had already spoken to somebody about me. So, like I said, word of mouth is really important both for picking your fellowship, But also, it will affect whether you get that fellowship or not. My mistake was I applied for for pediatric orthopedic fellowships because that was my intention. Um, and I changed my mind. Unfortunately, at the very last minute, and so as an s t a. I have done a bit of a U turn, and I'm now going to do shoulder and elbow surgery. And it took a lot of soul searching, and it was actually a really, really difficult decision, especially when you've got something lined up and you don't want to let people down. And you've had seen your colleagues or mentors who have gone out of their way to try and help you get that position. You feel like you're getting a lot of people down. But ultimately, as Mr Wimhurst said. When you become a consultant, you're going to do that job for 25 five years. This is a great opportunity to get experience in that subspecialty that you're going to do. And so you need to do what's right for you. And it can be a really difficult decision to make, um, And so if there's anyone out there, I can't just be me who changes their mind at the last minute. Um, it's all right. It will work out. Um, when you're looking at fellowships, cast a wide net. They're our fellowship finders on the Internet. Um, I personally didn't use them, but they can be a really great way of trying to show you what's out there and even giving you contact details for different departments. It might spark a conversation with somebody that you work with who can then put you in the direction of. Actually, that's not so great. Or that is a good fellowship. Um, but again, I haven't personally used them, but there are plenty of them on the Internet. Um, so the question number two is, Where do you want to go? And I'll kind of skip over it quite quickly. because I'm okay. I'm going to talk about it a little bit. But do you want to stay local? That means kind of within the region that you've trained, you have a reputation as well as the units within the region, and so that can work to your advantage. It might be due to your personal commitment that that's your only option. And that's okay. And it might just be convenience. If you have done a U turn at the last minute, there might not be the opportunities that you expect there to be. And so then that way it might be a good place for you to start. Um, the question you need to ask yourself about that is what's the value added? What is going to be different being a fellow in that department other than being a senior registrar, you might always be the registrar to that department, And that can be a really difficult thing to change in the mindset both for you and for the department. I don't agree with the cookie cutter analogy of a trainee, but it's certainly something that although I don't agree with it, there are people who believe in it. And so what you don't want to do is to label yourself as one specific person in one specific hospital. You need to show that you're trying to develop as a person and as a surgeon. National applications Again, There's reputation. There are brilliant units within this country. Um, and there are very sub specialist units who will, as Kate said, stand more. For example, orthopedic hospital writing turn. All of these, uh, kind of independent orthopedic based hospitals are going to do different stuff than your usual D d H. And so that can be really good if you're looking at the more complex stuff for your fellowship. Um, I think like I said, think about the next step. Where do you want to work in the long term? And is this going to broaden your horizon for your consultant post? Um, also look at how many fellows they have in the department And are you just put into the registrar pool, so to speak, because some trust do that. And then international, I say, changes as good as the rest. I'm not sure we'll see if it is, but there will be novel techniques and approaches everywhere around the world and, um, I want to travel. And so on to an international fellowship was something that I'd always expected I was I would do. Covidien probably made things a little bit more tricky, but certainly that seems to be getting a lot easier. So hopefully when everybody else comes up to fellowship, it won't be that difficult. There are significant financial implications in doing that. Um, and different isn't always better. You might need extra qualifications depending on where you go. And there is significant pay variability, which will come on two later. And so my other success was that I tried to think about all of these pros and cons, and I looked into the options that were near and far away. Hence why I have to fellowships. My mistake was coded, but I'm not taking responsibility for that one. Um, so if you want to stay local or within the UK, this is where you need to look so NHS jobs. Mr. Wimhurst talked about it when it comes to consultant posts. But this is where the vast majority of UK based fellowships will be advertised. You can set up an alert with the search terms just like I've shown here of fellowship and orthopedics. That's literally how specific you need to be. You will not get just the kind of senior post CCT Fellowship fellowships. You'll get the more junior ones as well. But every morning you wake up to an email that tells you the jobs that are available, and there will be a flurry of activity at various points during the year throughout the year as trust advertise their fellowships if either start in February or in the summer. But there will be the odd one that crops up where somebody has dropped out. So it's worth always having that in the background. You can set up that way in advance. So if you are an S t five and you want to see what's out there, it's a great way of seeing the opportunities that are going to come up. And like I said, some of these will fill up two years in advance, so there's no harm in knowing what's out there. Um, so, yeah, that's my top tip. That's really the only time I have that set up an alert with fellowship and orthopedics and you get the daily updates you can then look at the independent, uh, websites for each trust. So this is Bart, Bone Joint and Health. So this is the Royal London based fellowships, and they will have a list of the different fellowships and the contact for that fellowship writing tongue Have a similar thing. You can see. I want to get off of them. So I put that on there. And Exeter have one. They have one for the hip fellowships. They have it for their opinion fellowships. And these are just examples is by no means exhausted and most trust or big trust, especially with a reputable fellowship, will have a website dedicated to what they do. Um, so my approach would be to contact people, find the contact details, send them an email, attach your CV, and you probably will hear back. And then what normally happens is, um they will invite you to have a discussion or resume meeting. Or so do you want to come and visit? If you can always ask if it would be appropriate for you to come and visit because a lot of these departments you won't have worked in before, and it's useful to see whether you feel like it's a good fit or not and get a friend to help. I can't emphasize how important word of mouth is, and people will put in a good word for you. If you say you want to go somewhere and they know someone in that department and people talk and they'll know who you are before you turn up. Um, if you want to go abroad, you need Do you need to think about languages? I struggle with English most of the time, so there wasn't anywhere else I was going to go other than English speaking country, um, which I've highlighted in yellow just to make things earlier. Easier. Sorry, um, look at the qualifications. So if you want to go to the United States, you might be to the US Emily. And there are various other um, restrictions in different countries. Australia and New Zealand are the big kind of international fellowship destinations, but Canada also has some amazing opportunities. Look at the logistics of how you're going to do this. Timing's don't always match up with our rotations, Um, and so you might end up with a gap for me. That was a massive draw to going on my fellowship because I am in a period of grace now where I've got two months doing what I want to do in the trust that I work in the courage. And then I've got three months to get to New Zealand, which is perfect so I can go and do my traveling thing with it, being legitimized by saying I'm traveling to my fellowship. Um, so Australia massive draw for a lot of people and the Australian Orthopedic Association has their accredited fellowship website. It's great. It has a lot of contact details for the individual fellowships, and you can look back on previous years and find all of the ones that advertised each year and find the contact details so it doesn't need to have been advertised for something that's coming up. Similarly, New Zealand, uh, the New Zealand Orthopedic Association, they have a PDF document of all the fellowships that are on offer in the country, and again they have contact details. As you can see there, Canada, like I said, have some amazing opportunities. Um, they tend to be run through universities or individual hospitals, but they all have their own website as well. If you want to go to Vancouver. So the University of British Columbia. These are all the foot and ankle, uh, sorry fellowships that are available. But if you click on them, it will tell you about each specific one and the contact details, Um, knowing people who have gone to Canada and fellowship and having looked at doing one myself, the pay for Canada is completely different from going abroad to Australia and New Zealand. And the working hours are completely different from going abroad anywhere else or we're staying in the UK so there are a huge number of pros to doing it, and you will get a lot of experience, but they work really hard. They don't pay particularly well. So in a time when finances are stretched anyway, this can be really difficult. Um, so once you've applied, you need to think about what happens next, and it can be super variable. Um, there will normally be an informal chapter at some point and depending on where you are and that will either be that you go down and visit the unit like I said, um, or they'll give you a zoom call or a FaceTime or they'll just bring you on the phone and then you'll have an interview and again that can either be virtual or face to face. And I've done all of them. You'll get an offer, and normally they come back to you pretty quickly, which is really nice. Um, but like I said, the contact by contact is really important, so people will know who you are, and they love talk, so make sure that you're not forgetting where you are and what who is there to help you? Um, my mistake again, Number three was that I panicked, and I think, especially if you are somebody who likes to organize things like I do and like to have things panned out in advance. It's quite difficult if you suddenly find yourself where plans haven't quite work the way that you wanted or you're not in a position that you thought you would be. But there is always time. Um, so think about what you want to get from your fellowship and what's right for you. This is an amazing opportunity. It's a great year or two of your life and do the right thing. So local offers, Um, it's important to ask specific questions. So are you. What is your pain going to be like? Like Kate said, Most aren't banded, so you'll be on basic salary. But a lot of trust will ask you to do on call commitments and that would normally be on the register are greater. And that can be in a different trust than the one that your actual fellowship is based in. Look at the operating opportunities and a lot of the job adverts were to say that it will be supervised or there will be opportunities for independent lists and talk to the current fellow in that position, and they will tell you what they're doing. And people are pretty honest. They know why you're applying. They know what you want to get from it when you get the offer. It works very similarly to the register our drug process. You'll be contacted by HR or medical staffing. They'll send you the forms with the wrong dates on. You'll send it back, you'll change it, and you go through the same fun process as you have done for the last 10 years of your life. But it's very similar to the way you will have been appointed in different trust for your SPR posts with international offer's, There are different questions. So pay You have to work out currency conversion, um, and work out how you're actually going to get paid. Uh, the expectation of the hours. Like I said, the expectation of ours in North America is often very different to that in Australia and New Zealand. Um, and the process timeline. This can take a really long time, so you need to apply for registration and for their medical council. And they might have a new system in place, as New Zealand do, and nobody quite knows how to fill in the forms. And then you need to go through the visa application process. And this can quite often be a chicken and egg situation where you can apply for your visa until you've got your medical registration. But they won't necessarily given your your medical registration unless they know you're going to get a visa so it can be a little bit difficult and then think about your travel opportunities. Um, like I said, that was a big draw for me, and I think I can vouch for the being exhausted thing at the end of your training and being post CCT. And so having the opportunity to take a bit of a breather, even if it's only a couple of weeks, um, it's a great opportunity. And then think about where you're going. You're gonna have opportunities over there wherever that maybe the bottom line is there are loads of resources, but often the closest to home are the most helpful. And those people are your colleagues and your mentors. Within the trust that you've worked in, it's never too early to think about it, But it is okay to change your mind. And in my grands wisdom, what she said was, What's for you won't get past you. And it's so important to remember that that even though you think one thing might work out if it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. There will be a better opportunity around the corner. Thank you. Thank you. H, uh, questions at the moment in the chat. So next step up you have Ms Chase. He's one of the, uh, weight. Uh, this, uh, and Knowledge Pediatric Year Fellowship. Great. Can you guys see the slides. I can't see anybody. So yeah, So I'm Helen Chase. I'm a pediatric orthopedic surgeon from CNN and the West Suffolk and definitely had nothing to do with Rachel's decision to leave pediatrics for shoulders. So I'm going to be talking about how to get the most out of your fellowship, and I'm I don't want to repeat what's been said before, and so I'm going to sort of slightly skip through this first bit, so I I can't highlight enough. You will get the most out of your fellowship if you choose the right fellowship for you. And you have to be very honest about a your own skill mix and your own motivation. There's no point in choosing a fellowship. Um, that has, um, that you're going to be having to get up very early stage very late. Do a lot of on call if that's not what you want from your fellowship. So you need to really think about is it going to be a good fit for you in order to gain the most from you? You also need to be thinking about when you're CCT is going to hit exactly what you're saying. because, um, you need to work out how you're going to be able to get on that fellowship, Are you? Is that day going to work for you? Um, and one other thing again. Sort of relevance to getting the most early fellowship, which I really found was You need to think very carefully, once you've chosen, fellowship is where you're going to be because it will have a massive impact on both the the outside of work stuff, but also the in work. Um, if you're doing long commute, if you're living near by living in the city, you live in the countryside, etcetera. And so you've got to think about both cost, but also the social needs required. Um, And so how do you get the message? Fellowship? Well, you need to stop your bosses to start before your fellowship. Those were a fair number of mine up on the right hand corner. That was the boss in Barcelona. So you need to find out who you're going to be working with. You need to sort of google them, find out what their papers are, know something about their their specialties. Um, and you need to contact them beforehand. So introduce yourself find. Find out what they expect from you for the fellowship, because that will mean that you'll be able to find out what they'll be providing for your fellowship. Hopefully, at the same time, you'll be able to get an idea about what project. So generally people have pet projects. You'll be able to help decide which ones are going to work for you, which will be good for your year but also help help you get started because things like preparing for a project. It's amazing when you start fellowship those three months just absolutely whipped by, um, to begin with. And then suddenly you're getting closer to halfway through your fellowship and you haven't even got your teeth into the project. So really, do think about starting or at least preparing for your projects before you started that already get you moving with that. And also it's worth finding out people's expectations for for what? What you're going to be doing, what these? What the rotor etcetera is going to seem like and then before hand. It's worth thinking about Well, what clinical skills will you require in order to make a really good impression when you start so exactly escape was saying, You know, when you're going into your fellowship, you want to be able to go in with a skillset. That means that they will let you have independence early on, because that starts a really good first impression. Um, it was really interesting when I did my fellowship in Adelaide, Um, for pediatrical Phoenix. And, um, when I first started, I had on call. I was doing theater and I think, Gosh, this is really weird. This absolutely nobody is, You know, they're just letting me get on. What I wasn't aware and sort of found out later was that they do that with a new person. They see their first operating list the first time I call, they said, the decisions they make, the operating they do, and then they make a decision. On the basis of that is how much they're going to allow you to do how much they're going to start with you. So it's really important that for that first how you start, do you speak to the outgoing fellow, really? Grill them with regards to what the time table is going to be and also what the expectations that they had from the, uh from the different consultants, but also the team around and what advice they can give to give you the best experience? Um, exactly is Rachel was saying, People will never say bad things about a fellowship, but they will give you an idea about about what? How to gain the most or the best experience it's worth also finding out what management opportunities you're going to be finding out so you can. Is there the opportunity for doing teaching coordination, rotors, etcetera. And it's well worth, especially if you're going abroad to submit to conferences um, national international meetings in preparation so that when you go there, you got stuff to do. So within the first couple of months, I've gone to a place and I was presenting there, and that's where I discovered me. And my full suit is that the bottom right? This is the people turn up two Australian conferences in a T shirt and a towel. So it's a It's a real a real experience, and it's well worth going to these meetings because in that meeting I met a whole bunch of fellows that I then stayed very good friends with and still very good friends with and travel to the various centers do book you leave in advance. So if you plan New Year, if you give people lots of notice and actually you can do all those things without it being a scramble to get your, um, the time off and then once you start, it's really, really important to have an open mind. There is nothing more irritating than hearing people say, Well, in my whatever hospital you're at, they always do it like this or I always do it like this. You've got to be flexible because apart from anything and the most startling thing is actually the things that we take is absolute aren't necessarily absolute in other other centers, but also other countries. Um, you need to focus on your learning needs. But don't stomp all over those around you. This is your opportunity to to actually, um, work as a team in a senior capacity so that you can help in part knowledge so you can help with training. So you're going to gain your your training, but also learning to work with others. Um, and it it might be difficult. You might be in a center where there's multiple fellows and you're all sort of fighting for your learning needs. But actually you shouldn't. It's just trying to work out how you can manage sometimes difficult characters. Um, as I say, this is your chance to train. This is one of my trainees from when I was in Adelaide who baked a cake of the femur, which is very impressive. Um, and this is This is a brilliant opportunity to to teach to train and you'll be training registrars, which is something that's a little bit different than when you're in registrar training yourself. You're that step up and you're the specialist within that field. It's It's your opportunity to to really, um, to give people the best experience of whatever specialty you've chosen. Um, it's your opportunity also to learn about dealing with the admin, dealing with complaints, dealing with managing lists with 40 mg t. Um and so it's a really good opportunity to be a consultant, and finally, it's well worth thinking about a quality improvement project, and the easiest way to come up with one of those is to think of something that you've actually gotten your own centers that you've been working with during your training and see if there's some elements that you can, um, put into the to the center that you're working. For example, Um, you could, uh, there's a patient information leaflets for for pre consent if you've if you've got a center where they don't have those, but actually you've worked somewhere where it's really they work very well. That's how you can introduce and, um, and it does make a change. And so what can you gain from your fellowship so you can gain research and it's really important, uh, is going to be talking about what you need on your CV, and research cannot be minimized. So even those of us who are not particularly strong on research you need that in order to get a good job at a good center. Um, teaching, you have the opportunity to be teaching registrars, junior doctors. Maybe even if it's a university hospital you're at, you'll be teaching medical students, so this is again your opportunity to try and improve your teaching style or or learn different teaching methods. It's an opportunity to get management skills, and it is definitely an opportunity to learn how all those clinical skills that they don't necessarily teach. How many people can you see in the clinic? How many people, What cases? Can you put an operating this? How long are you going to take to do whatever it is that osteotomy that joint replacement? If you're doing that? How so? How many cases can you get in the morning list? Um, ordering the kit for for your case is prepping your theater, managing those patients when you're on court decision making. Yet this patient is to go to theater, taken to theater, and then you're going to be following them up afterwards, you're going to be seeing them from. So for the sort of start to finish, and that's a really that's consultant, that's an opportunity to really be a consultant. And you learn about professionalism as well as this. So it's, um, it's learning to, um, to manage patients, staff and working in very different centers. It's an opportunity to really spread your wings and and leave your region, which is which is a brilliant thing. And as I said, it's an opportunity to be a consultant. But while you're there, and I certainly did enjoy it. I traveled to more countries and I probably should have done. And I went to lots of different centers, and I experienced lots of different things. And I just had the most brilliant time. And I can't highlight enough. You will not get this opportunity again. So enjoy it. Go do see everything. I have an opportunity to make connections, which then, for meetings after meetings afterwards, you're meeting these people who you met during your fellowship, and that's really, really awesome. So I can't advise strongly enough that it's really important to embrace and enjoy your fellowship. Okay, between sharing that, thank you, Ms Chase, And you were the reason I wanted to do pediatrics. Not, yeah, thank you very much. That was really, really informative. And, uh, there's certainly lots of things to think about for the next year. Um, either, I don't think there are any questions that have come up in the chat so far. I don't know if there's anybody wanted to ask anything just now. Otherwise, we'll move on to the next talk, which is from Ben Concert, who is one of the oldest of England trainees who's been on a couple of fellowships, one abroad that he's gonna have to chat about. And he's recently been appointed as a consultant in Norwich. So we're looking forward to having him back here. So without further ado, I should pass on to Ben. Hi, guys. Um, I hope you can hear me clearly. Rachel, thank you for the introduction. And you recently appointed to knowledge so scary times. But I'm excited, and that should be fun. I'm going to be talking to you about going abroad specifically to Australia, which is where I spent my first fellowship. So I'll cover a few of the things that I've already been covered by the other presenters. Um, So I'll talk to you about how to apply for Australian fellowships, the permits and visas in a bit more detail, all the bits of paperwork you need to get done. And I'll tell you about what it was actually like to live there and also what fellowship was like while I was out there as well. There's a lot of pictures in my presentation after these slides because I think they had a better story of how things were. So Rachel already covered where to apply for Australian fellowships. There are two other points that I think are relevant to talk about. One is an organization called Aims, which is the Australian Institute for Medical Science. They also do fellowships, and they are a combination of public and private fellowships on their website. You can apply for fellowships through them, but what's really good about aims is all of the paperwork that you need to do. You pay them something like 100 lbs, and they will push through and do all the paperwork for you and guide you through the whole process. So it does save you a lot of time. The third place, which I think it's worthwhile looking at for applying for a fellowship, is actually referrals from friends, colleagues and consultants. My Australian fellowship, I was put in contact with the professor in question, threw gym Wimhurst from knowledge, and that cuts through a lot of the tape in terms of the application. What you actually end up doing is getting a yes from a professor over there after a conversation and in formal interview, and then you'll retrospectively fill out the required paperwork in order to formally apply for the job. Um, so there are quite a few people with Indiana that done fellowships both in the UK and abroad, including the Gene Lopez who's over a Colchester at the moment I met his previous professor when I was on a fellowship in Perth. Um, and knowing people is a very easy way to get into fellowship, even if they've got a waiting list. The fact that you've got a referral from a trusted source often means that you could be the next in line may be in 12 months or 18 months, which might align quite nicely with whatever plans you've got in place. So visas There are loads and loads of different visas that you can apply under in order to get into Australia. And the cheapest one, by far I found, was to go for a subclass 407 visa. And that's the training visa. It's a lot cheaper than any of the other ones, like a subclass 48 to now. Even though I'm saying it's cheaper, you're still looking at somewhere between 1.5 to 3000 lbs, depending on the visa you're applying for, um, and the good thing about these visas that because you're essentially providing an important skill set for Australia, you get them pushed through anyway. So, yes, it'll still take awhile. And with co vid, which is when I went out there, it was a lot harder to get out. But you can apply for an exemption, and applying for an exemption means that you get fast tracked a lot quicker. Your visa is also quite important when you think about who's traveling with you. I'm not saying you should get married in order to go to Australia, but if you're married and have a spouse, therefore they can simply travel on your visa. The good thing about it is there's only one visa, then to fill out, rather than them applying for a separate one and then being rejected if their skill set that they're providing isn't important enough for Australia. But also, if you apply for spousal visa, it means that they can work limited hours if they want to while they're out there. Um, do bear in mind that if you had kids, which is I had a daughter just before I went to Australia. The issue is you're going to have to get them a birth certificate in order to get them a passport and over only after having a passport. Can you even submit the visa application. So that lost me about two or three months overall in trying to get out to Australia. So what was planned for it? 12 month experience in Perth ended up being six months because of paperwork and red tape to get out there. But the South Africa variant was coming, so it was a very smart move to make leaving the country. So I don't regret it whatsoever. I do regret coming back so soon, but there are other things to factor in which I'll talk about it later on. So the exemptions, what I just discussed with rules being relaxed in Australia now you probably don't have to worry so much about applying for an exemption to get into Australia to cut down the waiting time. But it's still something to to consider, And that organization, I told you, aims if you can. There are loads of different organizations that can streamline your paperwork. Being in contact with them can help you get out there quicker and get all the paperwork sorted without any errors. Um, there's a lot of things to sort out when you get to Australia. The very first thing you should do before you even look for somewhere to live is set up a bank account. And all you need to do in order to set up a bank account is have a letter from your employer that says that you will be gainfully employed. And, um, you don't necessarily need to have an address initially to do that without a bank account. And this is the most important thing. You will not be getting paid. Um, and as Rachel and other presenters have discussed, fellowships can be very expensive. And just to go to Australia probably cost me somewhere between 10 and 15,000 lbs, which I'm still feeling the pain of now and during the pandemic. Just to fly out there cost me 5400 for myself. My wife and my my daughter was under one at the time. So so your bank account up early. Most important thing, then you need to register with their equivalent of the G. M. C, which is the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority I used aims to set all of my stuff up, so it was a lot easier. They streamline the process, and it was already in progress before I even arrived. So I just had to do some final paperwork in order to do that. But to register with their equivalent of the GMC, you need to go and meet your bosses. They need to fill out paperwork in a very specific recorder, a bit like when you're getting a signature on your passport to say you are who you are and then you have to then walk going person to the opera headquarters in whichever state you're in to get them to some paperwork off. Fortunately, because of code travel restrictions, you could send it off by e mails that did save a lot of time to get mobile phone. If you know someone who's in Australia and it's coming back when you're going out is so easy just to take their some card and change the details. When you were in quarantine, which I'll talk to you about in a bit, you can't order a SIM card. You have to go physically to buy it, and you have to use your passport in order to get it. So for two weeks, I didn't have a mobile phone, so to speak, other than the WiFi using WhatsApp that way. So definitely get your mobile phone sort of ASAP. Um, Then there's, uh, the equivalent of a CRP check. You do a CRP equivalent check in order to apply for your visa, but when you get there, you still have to do a working with Children. Check to make sure you're not on any registers. You need to sort out medical indemnity because you have to have separate cover like we do in the UK There's a number of different organizations to go with. I went with the Vyvanse or event, depending on how you want to pronounce it. They're reasonably cheap, and I think it costs me something like $30 a month to be registered with them. And the good thing with with all of their medical indemnity is if you leave early, they'll simply give you your money back, which I don't think you'll get such an easy run in the UK Register with these organizations as a doctor in training, If you register yourself in any other format, your indemnity will be massively higher, and as a doctor in training, you're still doing everything that you're doing. Fellowship. Operating independently. Parallel list, etcetera. It's just a cheap way of getting your insurance covered. You need to have a medical provider number, and that's really important in terms of trying to stay afloat financially. That medical provider number is what your claim. Additional fees. If you work with your boss privately, so as an a surgical assistant in theatre on a private list, you can earn a lot of money. And that's often how salaries are supplemented while you're on fellowship. So definitely get your medical provider number. And again, you can go via Appia to figure out how to get that done. Reciprocal healthcare is really important. So I went out with my wife and my daughter, who was under a year. But I was also. We're also planning on having other Children, and you have to cover the fact that you might be pregnant. My wife might be pregnant while we're out there. The cost of healthcare, um, ob gyn appointments, et cetera. So that can be quite expensive. So private health care, which was not viable you, but I just checked before I did the presentation that cost me about $300 a month. And it was mainly because of adding on that additional component of what if we have Children with the reciprocal healthcare, which is why Medicare UK based citizens can get the equivalent of national healthcare and public hospitals in Australia, and that will cover a whole host of things. You should apply for it as soon as you land because it takes about three or four weeks to come. But once it's there, you can get discounts off any and all of your medical things that you may need to buy even from a pharmacist. So it's very useful to get that sorted early. Um, the next part of presentation goes more into pictures because I think they're more exciting to look at. So living down under it was amazing best six months of my life and my wife's and I think the best start for my daughter as well, coming out of the pandemic, leaving the country going to essentially an oasis that was protected for more things. Um, I felt a little bit bad for the rest of the world. I left behind. But for my family, I think it was the best move for me. Um, so quarantine, we had to do two weeks and those two weeks were in an awful hotel. It was a five star hotel. It had only been open for nine months, were on the 27th floor overlooking the day. It was a very, very difficult time. Three meals a day. You could order you breeze. The most exciting time was when you hear a clicking outside the apartment door. And that's when we ordered the beers up for the evening. Once the kid had gone to sleep. Um, it was an amazing time. In those two weeks, I recovered from the overwork that we're all doing from cove ID. I got to know my daughter a lot better. She took her first steps in quarantine, help to readdress the balance. And I think when you're looking at fellowships, if you've got family and you're taking them with you, you need to look at trying to redress the balance. Because as you go through your training and then do your f. R c s and get your CCT, you're just increasing the stress load on your family and on your relationships. I think it's important to make sure that you re address the balance before you get any further along in your career. That's the only other thing to mention with regards to going abroad. If you're married in a relationship, whatever and then both of you are going, you need to make sure that decision is made between the two of you together. Because if your other half doesn't want to go, it's very likely that your relationship will fragment as a result of that trip. And that's advice I've had from previous consultants and friends as well. I think it's worth noting so two weeks in quarantine, great for recovery, got a few projects done, did all my paperwork and then were released to go and look for somewhere to live. Where to live is the next question. So on the right hand side that's me and my daughter at the beach and there are a lot of trips to the beach and I missed them sorely. The middle picture is the harbor, which was about 400 m from where we were staying, so you've got the option of staying either in an apartment in the city or like a flat. Or you can live in a house somewhere closer to where you work. The picture on the left is often to find my friends when I was looking for my wife. So the dot is me at work and find my friends. Location is where my wife is was most days with my daughter, which was on the beach. Um, if you're in Australia, everything out there is designed to kill you. So if you live in an apartment, you've got much lower risk of things like red back spiders and snakes crawling into your your home. Whereas if you're in the house, as I found when I went to my boss's house when I was out there, red back spiders are everywhere, everywhere. You have to kill them. Everything is designed to kill you. I'm a strong man, but I'm still scared of insects, spiders, snakes. So we chose to live in an apartment, and I think it was the safest option for us. It's more expensive to live in an apartment, and it is actually to rent a house. On the plus side, most of them have amenities like a gym and a swimming pool in a sauna on site, so it becomes a lot more of a holiday like experience. Um, so it's your choice between a house and an apartment. You need a car. You 100% 10% need a car in Australia. For me, it was easy to cycle to work. It was only about 6.5 kilometers, and the cycle lines are excellent, but you need a vehicle. My boss was kind enough to offer me a car. When I saw his car was an Aston Martin, I immediately felt that I would at least be getting maybe a jag. But instead I got a battered out Subaru Forester, which was about 30 years old. My daughter would have driven it if she could, but she was always moved from the steering wheel and it was a good, solid ride. And because I got given it, it was a lot cheaper because I only had to play for petrol and the thing went for weeks on a full tank. That was excellent, but you do have to factor in the cost of having a car, then getting the insurance, and both you and your partner being insured on it. Plus the cost of buying a fresh new car seat. Uh, baby car seat for your child to be in as well. Um, so definitely get a vehicle if you're in Australia. The fellowship itself was excellent. Um, that view is from one of the private hospitals, the coffee room next to the hospital, where all you see is a row of yachts. Um, the bosses I worked for were very welcoming, very sociable, excellent teachers. And they let me come up, which is the most important thing that you need on fellowship. They had links to the Australian Institute for Robotic Orthopedics, which was a private orthopedic research organization. Um, they were producing some cutting edge techniques for arthroplasty and being in Colchester, where I'm on a local fellowships. Currently speaking to Tim parent with Smith and Nephew. They have even been in contact with them with regards to the things they're doing and things that they want to be doing in the future. Um, I've got to do interesting research with them, looking at stuff like that. Artificial intelligence to autumn is surgical counts. It was an excellent time out there very hard work. The fellowship was four days a week with a three day weekend, which will never get anywhere else. There were occasions when we came in on the weekend to do trauma cases, etcetera, and I did manage to make links with other consultants, and I could have stayed for two years because I was offered another fellowship from another consultant while I was out there. And that's another important thing to mention about Australia. A lot of people that go on a fellowship in Australia go for one year and end up being there for two because they're able to access other fellowships just by being there in person. Um, so it's definitely something to consider, um, in terms of other things that would benefit from the fellowship. It was a alternative health care system seeing the way the Australians manage their patients, but also how they streamline their care in a private setting. Um, even though it's private health care, you can correlate a lot of the things they do back towards the NHS. So the chapter on the top right, for example, he looks taller than he is about 5 ft two stocky beast and he was the orthopedic technician. So his job, his sole job, was to bring the patient into theater, put them on the operating table, set them up post side supports tourniquets, whatever it was for a hip or knee replacement or a uni that was his job. And coming from the UK, where I'm used to doing these things, I started to do them, and I clearly got on the wrong side of him. Not too much on the wrong side. He was a short guy, but he's a big guy, so I left him well alone. We got I got exposure to new implants. So in Australia, but the bosses I was working for a predominantly used Australian implants. Sorry, French implants, and these have 10 plus. Oh, decorating is 10 stars, much like the ones we have in the UK, but we just don't know about them. So we're using totally uncemented knees or hybrid needs with rotating platforms. Concepts I haven't considered up to that point. The top left images the implants that my boss is often had in their clinics, so they always show the patients the implants that they would have inside their bodies and I think that's something we don't do enough in the UK and as a result, patients can't truly correlate the operations they have to the limitations of the implants or how they blend with their own body's. So it's something I plan to introduce into my practice. The bottom left is a picture of me with one of my good friends. I made out. There was one of the registrar's who, his family and my family. The kids were the same age. We bonded very quickly, and we've been in contact ever since. You make friends for life on your fellowships, as Helen Chase was talking about earlier, and I already have. What's that? Groups with the fellows from my previous fellowship and we discuss Complex case is and how to approach them. And I think those are mg t s of an international nature that you have for life. So they're definitely worth fostering while you're on fellowship. The next couple of slides are just big lists that I printed that I found on my phone of things I had to do in order to make it to Australia, and the lists were never ending lots of things you need to cancel for your own home. You need to get an Amazon fire stick for when you fly. So you can still watch the British TV programs because the Netflix in Australia is not the same as you've got in the UK. You want to be having a look at places to live before you even move out there and set up a bank account is pivotal. As I mentioned earlier, you know, What do you do with your own car? Do you get it stormed? Do you cancel the car insurance? Do you rent it to a friend? You know, what do you do with it? Vacuum. Packing your stuff to fit in your suitcase is it's really important, especially if you've got kids. If you do have kids, you need to plan for the entertainment. They'll need all the toys, everything that's going to keep them occupied on the flight. But also, if you do have quarantine while you're in there, Australia is the other side of the world. Get your air miles in because you can use them thereafter. Um, and for any of you guys that do have kids, your prom type, you take is really important to get one of those little ones that folds up into a bag. I call it a rickshaw, but it's really solid, and it will last you for the whole time that you're out there. Um, there's another slide of other things that you need to organize while you're out there. If anyone has any questions about going to Australia, I'm more than happy to be contacted privately for you to get my number from anyone you want. I can happily talk you through, Um, because you might need to do or putting people that might be useful. Um, final side is literally Australia pros and cons of things that I really enjoyed, the things I really hated. The chocolate is awful out there. It really is bad. They use chemicals in order to keep it in the sun, and hence it. The taste is totally gone, so I definitely would recommend it. The food is excellent. It's all homegrown, 99% of it. The meat is really good quality. If you're not vegetarian, the coffee is amazing. There. There's much into their coffee as we are into our wine in the UK, Amazing places to stay. Lots of Airbnb is worth traveling to. And if you look at Canada, Australia, America, Australia pays on fellowships, you are really well paid. So if you go via aims and do their research organization, they will pay you a grant, not a salary, which means it's not taxed. So you get paid more in a public fellowship than a private fellowship. But a private fellowship will pay you, on average $10,000 a month, which, when you translate that into pounds sterling, that's 5000 lbs, which is more than our salaries are registrars, and certainly more than they are as a fellow, Um, so there's a lot to consider. And again, I'm happy to be contacted privately if you have any questions about fellowships. Okay, I'm happy to take any questions if you have any spend. That was really great. There is a question, actually, in the chat about what the implications are for your earnings in Australia and how then you get taxed in the UK and that sort of things, Yeah, so that was a real problem when I was out there. The money I was earning was obviously so much better than your UK salary These daydreams about paying off my credit card or, you know, putting some money towards my mortgage because when we went to six months, I didn't even bother renting the flat. Um, the problem is, when you try and bring your money back to the UK, you literally lose 50% of it. So, you know, 10,000 lbs suddenly goes to 5000 lbs. So my wife and I decided that we basically just spank it. So we spent the money every month. Every last penny brought nothing home, but live like kings. It was amazing. Six months. So that's that's an issue. Yes, you have to. If you got bills in the UK like you're still paying your monthly credit card or you're still having things taking over, you have to transfer it back and pay for it. But, yeah, you lose so much money, there's just no point bringing it home. I did think of like buying expensive watches or diamonds and smuggling them back, But no, we just backed it. Yeah, Thanks, Ben. Lovely. And, uh, no other questions. But thank you very much. Then much. We're going to move on to Mr Sang rocker who has just flown back from Edinburgh and has made it in time. Fantastic. He is the TPD for Easter England and is used to interviewing lots of people at a consultant level. He certainly went through and grilled my CV on modifications to make sure that it was in good condition for my application for fellowship and consultant post so over you. Brilliant. Can you hear me there? Yes. Yeah, Perfect. Right. Okay. I've never used metal, so just bear with me. Guys share. And there we go. Right. So you should go to see my slides, right? Yes. Yeah. Perfect. Okay, so yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. And, Rachel, thank you very much for asking me to talk. Um, we're going to talk about CVS. Um, and actually, it's an interesting thing. So sorry. Yes, I'm managing garage. I work at the North Bridge. Um, So, um, in terms of your CV, what's the point? Okay, So Jim told you that when you apply for consultant jobs, you're going to be filling in application forms, but actually, it's your fellowship. That's the main time. And I think the difference is whereas when I grew up, I had to use CVS all the time to apply for jobs. I imagine many of you may not have had to do that yet. Okay. You've been using national selection forms, even foundation training, core training. Um, but actually, your CVS really important. So not only for your fellowship, but even when you do apply for those consultant jobs. As Jim said, the forms are very dry and actually CVS much more interesting to look at. And it's your chance to stand out. Okay, It's your chance to express yourself and to it might be the first time someone come in contact with you. Uh, and it's this pdf that you sent by email and they will actually flipped through this and think, Oh, this person sounds interesting, okay? And it's your chance to focus on your strength because the application form again because it is so generic. It's very difficult to bring out what you think makes you you. Okay, so I think the CVS really important. And that's where the interview begins. Okay, so when you're applying for a job fellowship or a consultant job, it's that CV that's going to make all the difference. Okay, people will make the decisions based on those bits of, uh, I use a paper, but they're not even paper anymore. When I applied for the knowledge job, I think it was 12 copies of my CV that I had to print out now. So when should you start doing that? Okay. And the answer is now. And some of you know I was looking at the list some of your S t four's. And I think this is a really good thing that you're doing listening in now to work out what you have to do in the next few years, and you have heard it at the time that you started your jobs. But when you start the training program, that's your consultant interview over the next six years, Um, but you've also got to be thinking about Well, how am I going to make myself a point? Um, so one of the things we said to a lot of our trainees is we might want you. But when you come to the interview and you apply, you've got to make it so that we can appoint you over strong competition and some of the people on this, uh, seminar today have done that. So you should be listening to what they tell you. One of the things about preparing your CV is it focuses the mind. Okay, Now, a lot of you are very see CT oriented. Uh, you know, I need to do this. I need to have two publications, and actually, it's all right. If I recruit two trials, that doesn't look quite so good on your CV, and we'll talk about that. So if you're filling in your CV as you go along, you'll see where there are holes. Okay? So if you start doing that now and look at the domains, what you want to do is make sure that you fill them up as much as you can as the years progress, Okay? And you want to keep it up to date. So I haven't updated my CV in many, many years, and it will be a bit of a pain if I have to. When you're training, though, that's why the ercp is so good. So when we ask you to make sure your CV is up to date, actually, it's doing yourself a benefit. Okay? What it means is that you don't have to worry that at the end of S t four or actually going to ST six really, isn't it? When you're trying to put your fellowship CV applications together, you've done it year on year, so it's just the easy way to do it. So I really do pay attention to getting your CV right now. Now, general presentation. Okay, So just like people being individual, you might like certain things and other people like certain things. And, you know, as many of you can tell, by the way I dress, I really do follow the principals laid out by Coco Chanel. But I thought that's a very cool quote that I learned many years ago. Okay, so, um, that's what your CVS got to be like. Okay. It's got to look very slick by simple. What I mean is, you don't want to overtake it. Okay? So you don't You might like unicorns. Uh, and you might like candy philosophy. Your CV doesn't have to have loads of pink and purple. You might want to have a little bit of color. So, for example, for me, with the little subheadings I did do in a burgundy and I thought. Okay, I can get away with that because I wanted it to look a little bit different. Um, And so, yes, I have a little flourishes, but just make it look cool, okay? You don't want people looking at that going. This is a weird, um, so it's going to be well structured. Okay, Because again, it's basically representing you and your thought processes. Have a title page on that title page. It would be very simple. It's your name, your qualifications application for and the job. Okay. So, again, in the olden days when you had to type out your CV, you probably couldn't change your CV. For every job that you're applying these days, it's very, very easy. Uh, and it's amazing when you see CVS where they clearly haven't changed between one job and the other, it really doesn't go down. Well, um, contents page. That might sound a little bit strange. Some of you might think maybe, you know, there isn't enough in my CV to have a contents page. A lot of you probably have enough on there already to be having a contents page, okay? And it just makes it very easy for was flicking through it. And when I started because all my friends in the city said, Oh, no, your CV should only be two pages. That's what I did. And actually, it was a really, um it was It was a great orthopedic surgeon I worked with as a house officer who tore my CV apart. And maybe Cate, that's what I've learned to do the same. But he basically first he laughed at it. He said, What have you really got to page is this is not right at all. This is this is a medical CV, so, yeah, you don't have to make it as long as you possibly can, but it needs to have all the information there. Okay, Um and yeah, I really do get the basics. Right. So check for typos. Make sure that the punctuation, the grammar, because this again, as I said, is representing you. The first page is where you're going to grab them. Okay, So you want to They want to look at this and think, Yeah, this is the person I'm interested in. You have to have your personal details, X. We would expect to see that there, but that can be in a relatively small fund. You're going to tell us about your medical education. I don't really care. And I don't think most people do about which secondary school you might have been to. Um, some people went to better schools and others, and that might look really good in your CV. I'm not so sure. Okay, do include your post graduate degrees, including, So you may have a master's the MRCS and the F R. C s states again. If this is your fellowship and you've already got your f r c s or your consultant job and you got your F R. C s, don't put your MRCS, it's irrelevant. You could put your professional membership. So if you're becoming a knee surgeon, put down that you're a member of Mask the B o A. These things make it look like you care about your profession and that you're going places. And then most of us would say, Put our personal statement on that page. Okay, so it's going to be about half a page, and it's going to be job specific. It's going to say why you're interested applying to the job that you're applying to. So if it's a fellowship in Sydney, it's going to be talking about why that's so cool. If it's a fellowship in Toronto, you will change that paragraph at least to say I'm really interested in this fellowship in Toronto. Um, yeah. Rachel would have had to do this quite a bit. Um, you know, you met Helen Chase, and Rachel told you that that's why she chose to go into peds. She then worked with me and within four weeks decided not to. So But get those bits right. It wouldn't have looked great if she applied for herpes fellowship or shoulder fellowship using herpes applications. Okay, so we're going to talk about why the particular job you're applying and you want to tell them why it should be you. It's a bit of a summary to say. What makes you so good? Okay. And if it's a consultant job, career intentions and plans is important even for fellowships. Actually, a lot of people, when you look at, say, for example, sick kids in Toronto, they want to know that you're going to be someone who's making massive changes across the world. They don't actually really want to just train a general job in pediatric orthopedic surgeon. So you want to put something there that is going to grab people's attentions? And then what about the rest of case? So on the second page, I'd say what you want to have is a summary of all the relevant jobs and courses for what you're going for. So if it is a soft tissue knee job or if it's a revision hip job, that's where you're going to outline exactly what experience you've already got. And that could include your fellowships. It could include your registrar jobs. It will include the courses that you've been on that were particularly relevant so that people can see within the first kind of two minutes of looking for your CV why you're a serious contender, then the sections and you can choose which order you put them in. And what I'd say is put your stronger sections first. Okay, so you've won them over, and then if there are sections that aren't quite so strong, put them towards the end. If you're looking at these things thinking, man, I can't put much there in any of them, then we need to change that. Okay, so teaching you don't really want to put I've been involved in lots of teaching. Undergraduate, Postgraduate. I've done little lectures and group teaching. That's what people who have nothing there to put we'll have to put. Okay, so that's why I put overview there. If you can't put anything else you're going to include the teaching course is that you've been on. So, for example, tots and you're going to talk about the courses that you've organized or that you've been faculty on. So, for example, if you give a talk on the wheat seminar, you're going to include that in this section so people can see specific things. Okay? And it really that cells rather than fluff leadership and management, is a similar thing. Okay, and quality improvement project. We want to see those. We don't want to know all of the points about the quality improvement projects you've done but brief description, so that you can make yourself sound interesting about what you did. And then that's a good focus for the interview. That's where we'll ask you. Well, tell us about this, but you've got to be able to put something there, and that's why it's really important. S t three and beyond. You keep doing these things, okay? When there are opportunities to get involved in leadership and management, if it's to do trainee committees, get on and do these things so you can fill up your CV and then research. Helen mentioned about how research is important. And this is where I talk about the C C T vs CB Discussion. Okay, most of you. So today's a level day when you did your GI ccs, you didn't go. Oh, I hope I get 5. 80 ccs. I'm amazed at how people look at the CT CT requirements and think that's all they've got to achieve. If you want to get a good job and the job that you think you want, which may be competitive, you don't know who's going to come out of the woodwork to go for these jobs against you. You've got to make yourself strong. You've got to make yourself interesting. Um and yeah, you wanna have publications and presentations? And I know Jim said, uh, talking about kind of splitting the pie. Okay, I don't mind that on your CV you have to have that because you want to see how many publications? The reason why? I think that's important, actually is it tells me how much work you've done. Uh, what made you different from every other training out there and what you did to spin work from project to presentation to a publication? If your CV is good enough and you're a strong enough candidate, you'll have one section for first author publications and then one section for the others. Okay, Um, and trust me, there are guys that we see a national selection for specialty training where they could do that already and then presentations. You want to divide into podium and poster, And then actually, what? I was doing this. I thought, This is interesting. So a lot of you will have book chapters. Okay, so that's an easy thing to get. It's not easy. It's a good thing to get into, and it's a great opportunity, but what about podcasts? Okay, so we're in a different world now. I think this kind of seminar could come under teaching, or it could come under some sort of media heading, but I think you've got to put these things down. If you've been organizing it or if you've been speaking on this counts, okay. It makes you sound more interesting. So do you think about that as well? Take all of these opportunities and don't do this. Okay? Now, don't bother reading it. This is actually just stole from the Internet, which is a list of English courses at some specific university. You don't need to list every audit that you've done. No one is going to go. Wow. They did 15 audits in the last five years. Aren't they great? You could tell us about the best two or three. Okay. You certainly don't need to list every course that you've been on. If you're applying for a fellowship in pediatric orthopedics, they don't care that you did. A categoric approaches course for pelvic trauma. You don't need to put every meeting that you've been to. They don't want to hear that. You went to see Doc four years ago, and they don't need to know about every teaching that you've given. But hopefully you've got enough there to just make some important mentions. Okay? Don't bore. Remove the list, and then the other activities and achievements. Okay, So you may have done great things. And it might be Sometimes you see things on CVS and again with national selection as well, Where it really blows you away Had one person in national selection who talked about one thing. But then, actually, what we're more intrigued was that she was actually a martial arts champion. But she just didn't really thought. I think that would be something that would be of interest to us. That kind of stuff is really cool. Okay, so if you got things that you can talk about, you might not want to mention that you came first in a swimming tournament that was held in your first year at secondary school. Okay, I think that scraping the bottom of the barrel But if you said I enjoy swimming, that's okay, because we're interested in interest as well. My consultant interview. Okay, so I can't put down my interest on my see Be really? But I did. I put some I put film and the chief executive actually asked me. So Jim still talks about Jim. Wimhurst was on my consultant interview panel. Uh, he still talks about the fact that the chief executive asked me, What's my favorite film. So I said, Well, because we're in an interview, I'm gonna have to sound really sophisticated. And I did love Emily. And if you haven't seen Emily, it's a great film French film. And I said, But really, the honest answer is Star Wars and we had a discussion about a million Star Wars. These things aren't going to sway the appointment, okay, But actually, it's just nice to see that there is a person as well as all these other achievements. Um, but don't think that just because you happen to play in the right rugby team at the right place in medical school is going to help you get your consultant job in this day and age. Okay, now, one last thing that I didn't mention was references, and it's because I talked to this guy's name was change it, Um, and he's down in Kentucky. Um, he also laughed at my CV because when I had teaching from a urology consult in my first house job, he said we should put the nurse the ward matron on our CVS referees, uh, and again in tearing my CV a part that was something that he found particularly using. Choose your referees carefully. Okay? Make them relevant. If there are people who the place you're applying to know, that's really important. Um, but don't put randoms down. Okay? Right. So what am I going to conclude? So you need to start preparing your CV now, however young you might be however far away. You think this all is Do do the Can I see yours and ask you to look at mine? Okay, So see as many CVS as you can and ask as many people as you trust to look at yours, take all bits of advice with a pinch of salt, and you've got to evaluate. And that's why it's really important to keep sense checking. Uh, and my biggest bit of advice is Do take the time and effort to make your CV specific to every job is really not that difficult. Okay, uh, and then the last point, Don't do it. Okay? I don't know if you guys remember the apprentice a few years ago, and there was a big discussion in the media and people. A lot of people said, Well, I always do that. There's loads of lives in my CV If you get caught out, people might want to raise probity issue, so just don't do it. You could lie about an interest, but what's the point? Okay, So if you don't, if you don't genuinely go scuba diving, just don't stick it on. You see, because you don't want someone quizzing you about it, Okay. Thank you very much for your time and attention, guys. Cheers. Fabulous. Thank you very much. Uh, no questions in the chat at the moment. So we carry on this evening from one of my hip mentors through my training, we're going to hear from another. And I'm going to invite Mr Reston if he's there to pop this camera. Uh, Mr Austin is a hip reconstruction surgeon up in Inverness now. He's very sadly left us in the east of England. Uh, he's got an awful lot of experience, is clinical lead. And they were going to hear from him. About what? As a member of the consultants interview panel he would look for. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, can you just hear me? Internet is working. Excellent. Evening, everyone. I am a poor substitute for this particular talk, which I think I was asked to mention or talk around the consult interview. If you're probably already getting, there's a lot of overlap in all of this because essentially what you're doing is you're preparing the senior part of your career Really? For that next stage. Okay, The consultant interview for most departments is about finding a colleague, right? Most people at that stage can do the clinical work, what you're looking at someone you're going to spend some time with, Okay in the department, which is a bit of a kind of stressful, hectic environment. And when you are left with the day today worries you want people around you you can depend upon now for those who haven't met me because I'm not in the east of England, I was originally originally armed forces a naval consultant in orthopedics, then became an HS consultant in Peterborough, which is where obviously I know some of the gang from this evening and then about 18 months ago, decided to up sticks and move to NHS Highland. So I've now had three consultant interviews in my time, which would be the Armed Forces interview panel, Peterborough, um and then moving on to to my most recent job. The first one was probably one of the most stressful days of my life. Because it's the it's a little bit like your exit exam. It's the sort of summit of what you've been working towards. Second one good deal, bit more straightforward. And by the third one, you think, yeah, this is really quite quite easy and actually a bit of fun. Okay, Now you've had lots of chats on applications in short listing. And really, the purpose of this is just to mention what will happen on the day. The one thing I would say on your application is just give it some thought. Is that the job you want? Okay. And essentially, what the question is trying to be answered is, Are you the person that they want? The medical work force is clearly more mobile than it ever has been. So there's been lots of people suggesting, Well, this is your job. For the next 25 years, I would put it out to all. It might well not be okay. In fact, I think it's increasingly likely that it won't be for a good chunk of you. Sometimes the perfect job just isn't there. Okay, so it seems that everyone wants to go and work in Norwich, and I almost feel pressed to apply for the next job. But sometimes that opportunity isn't quite there at that time, even if the department would want you. So just keep your your options open and be prepared. The options might well open a year or two or further down the line. Short listing, having participated in doing it and indeed undertaken it in the last 18 months isn't optimized. But let's not kid ourselves okay. With a little bit of clever answering to the questions, it's fairly clear who's writing what application, All right, and I think we should all be grown up to the fact that it's, uh, you maybe want to make it clear who Who is that supplying? Because that really is a reflection of bringing out your own individual strengths. Be aware that the preparation and a short listing takes a little bit of time. Okay, the form form filling is entirely unsatisfactory. Okay, because you feel like you've told them nothing about you, but that's probably not entirely true. The last bit really is the interview. Okay, It's the last step in the process, and hopefully you'll only have to do one. If it's the job you want. I would say, if you're sort of nervous sort and it is a little bit like your test, you should take the same approach. You should prepare, and you should practice. Lots of people have been through it before you. The more you practice it, the less you'll be surprised by things and the more straightforward it will all come. I think there are some myths around the whole consultant interview thing, the biggest of which is that every department has already decided who gets what job before they turn up. Now I'm going to say That's not exactly true because again, I think you should be growing up growing up enough to think that there may well be preferred candidates, people who have trained in region. Sometimes it's easier to have people that you are more familiar with and that you know who are good and strong candidates. But if someone alluded to earlier, there will always be external applications and you'll get incredibly strong. Candidates who are out of region will decide to apply for jobs, so just bear that in mind. The other thing to bear in mind is really they advertise for, I don't know, one after plastic surgeon. Sometimes there's funding in the background, and if another job maybe isn't immediately available, it might well be shortly available. So if you are impressive at an interview and funding that comes up, then they may. We'll just give you a call on the back of that and say, Would you like a second post? And that's certainly not that uncommon. Um, the other thing, of course, is be prepared that the preferred candidate might just screw up, okay. It wouldn't be the first time people have really put their foot in it, so it can happen. And quite often it's a closer. One thing that you might consider, um, final little word of warning is be prepared to do the advertised job. Okay, um, there may be things that you do, and maybe you'd rather not do in your consultant career. But for the day of the interview, and certainly for the first few years of your consultant practice, you just gotta suck it up and do whatever is on the on the job advert. Okay? You're not going to change things too quickly. So what would most of you expect from the format of the on the day interview? Well, you're all gonna have done your marching around the hospital. You're gonna have press the flesh of the key people in the department. And traditionally it was always a face to face interview, isn't it? Sort of. Whites of your eyes get everybody. They're lined up in the suits and and have a 45 minute, 60 minute interview with them. Obviously, Cove, it has changed this a little bit. Many more interviews are now Web based, and I think it's increasingly likely that that in some way we'll still form a reasonable proportion of, uh, of interviews going forwards for myself. For instance, coming to NHS Highland. Not everybody can just drop up to Inverness at the drop of a hat and therefore Web based interviews are very common and very matter of fact and normal. Be prepared. Um, everyone has said the sorts of things that you should be be looking into as a broad rule. The clinical stuff at this part of your training will be pretty straightforward. Okay, You recently passed your test you know, as much information as you ever likely to know. So so that is is not really the purpose of it. The things you need to consider are the wider NHS, how it runs, how it functions. Or maybe how it doesn't function, the finances of it, the funding of it, um, and the processes of it Think of it as a regional level. Think it down to a hospital level, Um, and think of the wider maybe non clinical skills teaching governance, the rules and responsibilities of being part of the medical profession because they're all part of it. Um, when you do have your interview, obviously be on time. Okay? I wouldn't expect any of you folks not to be. And if it's an I t based thing, check it, double check it, rehearse it. And just don't be that person who can't remember which button to press on the day of the presentation. If they ask you specific requests and a presentation would probably be the most common. Stay, stay strictly to the question and work to the timing, as you would always do dress appropriate, be smart and kind of conduct yourself in a fashion that best represents you. Then I would suggest you have to relax. Okay? One of the hardest things is when people come to interview and don't say very much and they don't really seem to express themselves. Um, maybe two to their best, understand that you are speaking to potential colleagues. Okay, this is not an application to medical school and application to training. These are going to be your everyday colleagues. Okay, so So act appropriately for that. As I say, everyone at that stage should be capable, really doing the job. And typically and I would agree with someone earlier who said for each post, most trust would probably interview only two or three people, and probably not much more than that. Now the panel may well be open to you as to who's going to be on it at the time of short listing. But be aware that the panel often does change fairly early on. And in my experience, this is often just down to the hum drum and the nitty gritty of hospital life. So suddenly, the medical director, the chief executive, whenever it was, wasn't or wasn't available. Um, that's not anything to be too concerned about because the structure of the panel very much goes through a relatively formal, mundane process of the interview, where most of the questions and the topics covered are really fairly predictable. So who might you expect to be their? Well, there's going to be the medical director or nominated deputy. You may well have the chief executive or a nominated deputy, and that's usually someone from the senior management team. And if you consider the structure of the hospital, that's likely to be the operations officer, the finance officer. Those are the sort of senior people who may well step in. Most larger hospitals will then divide themselves into subject and medical divisions, and you may well have a representative from the subject division. Of course, that can be medical, nursing or indeed, managerial. And sometimes people at that level will kind of act up, um, and cover any any gaps in the panel representing the wider hospital within the department and the post that you're applying to. I would expect there to be the clinical lead representing the department, and you'll almost always have at least a potential consultant colleague, most usually from the subspecialty that you're applying to there should ideally be an external Panelist. Now, I'm not sure this is, uh, well, I know it's not mandated, but it's very much nice to have. And that would be the sort of college rep for the university rep or sort of equivalent. The purpose of the external Panelists is really to check that all candidates are a point herbal in the true sense that they fit the job requirements that we're advertised and they're fit for purpose. Um, often when the when you get down to deciding who will be the successful candidate. Um, the external Panelists, having agreed with the interview panel as to people's appoint ability, will then step back from the actual decision and leave that to to those in the trust that you're applying to. All questions will be identical to all parties, and every Panelist will be asked to keep a scoring sheet and comments. So there is a degree of fairness to the whole thing. Uh, and of course, it allows for feedback and scrutiny. If anyone wish that, probably, Um, probably when people start thinking about a consultant interview the most important thing. Um, what questions am I going to be asked. Now, in many respects, that's the simplest approach to this. Um, I would, uh, you know, clearly go looking for common questions. Interviews. You can get that from your peers from newly appointed consultants. You'll find it from courses from the Web. You know, wherever you want to go, there's plenty of these questions available at a sort of more basic level, though you're going to take a step back and think, What is each person likely tha want to know from their area of responsibility with in the hospital, usually the chair who will introduce the panel members will tell you the format of how it's going to be. Who's going to ask this question if you have a presentation to do when you would be expected to do that? And often the first question is really just to get you talking. Okay, it's something simple, you know, Why are you applying to NHS Highland or what interests you about the job? Something really fairly mundane. So really, try and get off to a good start, get chatting and try and get into the rhythm of things. The characters, obviously you are at the panel the medical director. If you think of a role in the hospital, they are really the overarching medical professional there. So things like behaviors, standards, GMC, um, property, all these sorts of things, um, often sit in the in their remit and they will have their favorite questions. And it will be along those lines, the chief executive or that are nominated representative. Um, they may well be asking you about the wider N h s. So be prepared and read around some of those issues whether it be waiting times, finances, you know, local local processes, anything that's a hot topic at that particular time. They will expect you to do that. As I said, the subject of division elites, Um, well, they may well ask you those whole hospital type questions, okay, because they're generally not so interested or knowledgeable about your subspecialty area of expertise. So again, you can expect that from them, and then you're really coming down to the external rep and the your would be consulting colleagues. Often when we did it, the external rep would be doing CD and research. Okay, that's often their thing. And they'll talk you through your CB your application, and they'll talk you through some of your common research accomplishments. And then, as you carry on down the department, your clinical lead may often structure it around issues around the service in their own region in their own trust. How that trust integrates with neighboring trusts going all the way down to the consultant colleague, who will often ask you something clinically based, um, often in your own subspecialty. Plus or minus a question, let's say, in general trauma, uh, again, the clinical questions are generally pretty straight forward. Okay, they're they're really to get your feel on how you practice, how you maybe understand some of the non clinical interactions, you know. For example, in NH Island NHS Highlands, Um, we are busy Trauma District General Hospital. They cover absolutely outrageous, uh, geographical area. So there are lots of questions often asked around how we move patients when we move patients and the difficulties with that, you're all bright enough to go looking for the common areas of information we all know about the left hip fracture data bases, NGR Scottish arthroplasty project training surveys. The other place that you might be able to look for topical issues is the local newspaper again, The Inverness carrier carried the, uh, the the the News That's some lady had waited six years for her joint replacement. I'm not sure that's entirely true, but it wasn't far from the truth. And what it does is it gives you another. Another view of how that hospital performs, often from the from the perspective of patients. Uh, and the local journalists expect your interview probably to last about 45 minutes, give or take, and they will always end it with, uh, have you any questions? Now it may be, it may seem difficult. Maybe it's quite stressful, but it is quite nice. If you can engage and and ask some questions. It does show a level of interest, and that's that's quite helpful and often a level of understanding. Um, don't be surprised if you asked fairly bluntly, if you were offered the Post, would you accept it? Um, obviously, most people will say yes, it kind of goes without saying when the interviews concluded or concluding. Um, they should, um, tell you when you can expect to hear from them now. Departments will do this differently. So when we were doing it in Pittsburgh. We would try really within a couple of hours to be back to all candidates with an outcome. Um, some people will hold it to the following day, depending on the time of the interview again. Just make sure you're clear. Make sure you have a contact number or if you're not going to be contacted for a couple of hours, that that's clear to those on the panel. And that might be that you're traveling home. For instance. Um, they may give you a little bit of thinking time if you're accepting accepting the Post, although most people will generally just verbally accept it there and then and then, of course, you fall into the formal. H are processes, which, as we all know, we'll take a little bit of time. Finally, what I would say to you is kind of be honest in all of this and try and express yourself as well as you're able to. Um, however badly you think the interview has gone, it certainly won't be that bad. I can assure you, um, do consider jobs out with your training program because, as I say, there's often more scope for getting into other areas and enjoying other experiences than you might consider. Um, and don't worry too much about the specific questions, because once you start preparing for it, you will very much find they're all very much along a similar theme which you can easily work towards. Thank you. Lovely. Thank you. Solid life advice, as always in to the chat. Another website. Actually, that was quite useful that I used to run up to my interview, which was the model hospital website, which is quite interesting to have a look at in general. But if you're coming up to an interview, it gives you a lot of information about our T t pathways for that particular trust. And obviously, you can then change the site and look at the ICS as a whole that you're applying to. Okay, Um, just double checking. I don't think there's any other questions at the moment, but you can always get in contact with us. We can touch base. Otherwise, a big thank you to all of the faculty that have given the time. Evening. Uh, thank you. Uh, I know we've run a little bit late, but I think it was Hopefully, some really good advice for you. And we're always happy for you to reach out to if you have any questions later. Date. Uh, one more thing I just wanted to say I think it might actually have been created. Me this, um correct me if I'm wrong. Uh, some has said to me before that if you find a place that you want to work with, people that you want to work doing the type of work that you want to do to get two out of those three things will be happy. If you get all three, it's a bonus. And I think it is. Really? I think that was you, wasn't it? I don't know. I think most of those things can be found in Norwich. So that's what I've learned. It sounds like a bear in mind. Yeah, absolutely. Believe Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for signing in. Thank you. Uh huh.