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OK, guys, I think we'll probably make a start and then as people come, it's OK. Um So welcome to our webinar on the academic interview as part of the SFP process. Um So if you people who haven't been to any of our webinars before, I'm Jan V. I'm currently an F one in North East London um doing my academic blog in Critical Care next year. And hi, Ver, I'm naj. I'm an A FP trainee in North West London and I'm on the academic medicine rotation with Imperial. Cool. So what this is gonna involve is we're gonna give you a brief overview. Obviously, this station does depend on what dean you're going to be interviewing for, but it's gonna be like a just look talking through the basics of critically appraising a paper and the kind of things you can expect um any questions at all just pop them in the chat and we'll try our best to answer them. OK. So just a disclaimer before we get started. So all this information is based on our experiences and other people's experiences. We like everyone else don't know the exact marking process. So we don't know exactly what's involved. But we'll tell you what we know from our experience and just a shout out to the previous mind, the BS FP teams in which we borrowed a lot of content. OK. So just an introduction to the academic interview. Um So normally in most places you're asked to present and critically appraise a paper, um, it can be any type of research most commonly, it is a randomized controlled trial, but people have been caught out. So just make sure you practice all the different types. Um It really depends on who you have and even, and within the same day, what we got like the uh what is it called? The makeup of the interview was very different. So some people were interrupted while they were talking, some people weren't. So it really depends and sometimes they can ask you very specific questions like define this. What did you mean by that? And sometimes it's more vague questions like, what did you think was good about this? What do you think were bad? And just to let everyone know in case you're wondering, you might not have access to the abstract as you actually present it. So normally in your prep time, just make sure you've had a good read of it. Um But we'll go through next what to do during your prep time. So the things we should do I think is read the abstract kind of as a whole first. Um And this will give you a good kind of background understanding on what the actual point is. There's no point. First of all appraising the first section and then figuring out the conclusion is something completely different. So read it as a whole first and then make brief notes on kind of the key components. So just a brief summary of the paper and then of the discussion points that you want to cover um with loads of practice, you'll get used to a structure that works for you. And we're gonna go through one of the structures that me and ne both used, but everyone has different things. So whatever works for you, but stick to that and make sure, you know it really well in your head. So when you're prepping for in your prep time, you know that these are the bullet points you need to get down and what you're gonna talk about. And also just as side things, make sure you have a drink because when you're nervous, obviously you get very dry mouth and this is gonna be a lot of talking this one. Um in terms of don't, don't write down your entire critique, you don't have time for it. And also you don't want to sound very rehearsed. It's a discussion, it's not a presentation. Um Also don't feel like you need to write for the whole prep time. A lot of it is thinking um you know, just decide whatever works best for you. And also don't feel like you need to allocate 50% to your academic paper and 50% to your clinical. I think most people and I think n would agree to spend a little bit more time on the academic one just because it takes a little bit more time to read it. And the clinical one, obviously, we have a lot more experience with clinical things. But if you, you're the other way around, don't worry about it. And another thing is in the interview, never mention a phrase that you don't understand. So in trying to s uh like sound clever, sometimes we say certain things, but the examiners will pick up on that and they will say, oh, what did you mean by that? And then if you don't know what you're talking about, you know, you're giving them extra things to grill you on. Um Also part of the academic interview is normally a motivational question. It's kind of like an opener. Um So it's something like, tell us about yourself. What's your motivation for doing SFP? Why would you be good? Um And normally the answer to all of these is kind of the same and you kind of want to just sell yourself and why you want to do an SFP program. Um So discuss why you want to do it. It depends on what you want to do. You can keep it very generalized about research in general or leadership in general or you can keep it very specific like this is the program I want to do because I'm interested in doing this particular career path. Um Another good thing is to mention your previous experiences that make you kind of a good candidate for both academia but also a good candidate for kind of the clinical aspect. As we mentioned in our previous webinars, they're looking for someone who is clinically, very good, as well as academically good and try to be unique and honest. Don't say things that you want them, you think they want to hear, be honest about why you actually want to do it. And that kind of comes across quite genuinely. You also want to stand out a little bit from the crowd. So obviously have an answer prepared and see what you can say for that practice this question, loathes because you're definitely going to get it, but you don't want to sound over rehearsed. So don't kind of, you know, sound like a robot when you're saying it, but that's true of everything as you guys know. Um one thing we can use is the C framework which I'm not sure if you guys have heard about, but it involves the clinical reasons, academic management and personal. So that's a good way of kind of structuring to make sure you cover all the aspects of why you want to do this. And this is a good way of just getting used to talking to the interviewers as well. So don't feel too stressed about this question. It's nice and relaxed and it's a good way to get going in terms of the preparation kind of everyone prepares differently and it obviously depends on what kind of research background you had. So me personally, I don't have much background in research at all. So this is all very new to me. Um So I would recommend reading not the whole book but the important aspects from two books on the screen here, but there are loads of them out there. And then the main thing to do is just to read any abstracts from any journals. There's no, you don't really need to read whole long papers, but any good medical journal just read the abstract and practice. First of all, you can write down what you think and then practice actually saying it out loud because you'd be surprised even though you've written loads down sometimes actually saying it is very difficult. Um and use a variety of papers like I said earlier, you know, everything could come up in theory. So just make sure you know everything and you're not thrown out by it in the moment, then practice with your friends as well. So if you have a like a good friend, you can partner up with, just make sure you do a little bit every day, every other day, you don't have to be, you know, doing hours and hours of prep, but the more you do you'll find at the beginning it's really difficult and you, everyone runs out of things to say almost and then at the end you're like, oh, wait, I know this. Now, I know all these points I need to hit and it gets very, very easy. Um, we'll go through this in a second as well but learn and understand all your definitions. Um, because they are, they do sometimes ask very particular things and they ask, what do you mean by that or what does that mean in the paper? And also just enjoy it because it's actually quite interesting if you haven't done it before and you get to read loads of abstracts and it actually is quite a lot of fun when you're practicing with a friend and don't worry about being extra mean to each other because that's how everyone learns anyway. So just shortly, what is the critical appraisal? So it's a short structured summary of an abstract that you just read. So you're appraising kind of the stronger and the weaker aspects of the study. And this is really important to keep it quite balanced. You don't wanna say it's an incredible study. It's the best thing ever because it's never going to be that. But you also don't want to be overly negative about anything. So, like in my interview personally, um my paper was, it was not a good research project at all. To be honest, but you really have to say the pros as well because they always ask them. Um and you sound more well rounded when you say it like that, you then want to go through your kind of overall interpretation and the clinical relevance. And to be honest, normally the answer to is this clinically relevant is going to be, it could be, but I need to look at more papers and there needs to be more research. There's never anything that's kind of, you know, changes the world of medicine with one research paper. So we just need to be a bit clear on that aim to kind of have your presentation type of bit for five minutes. But I think most people are interrupted, but you could also not be interrupted. So just make sure you're comfortable either way if they do interrupt you and kind of ask you a question in the middle of your introduction, just try to get back on track and stick to your structure. So always just come back to your structure at the end of it. Don't get derailed by something they've said. Um make sure it's really well structured like I just said, and sign posting. So say now I'm going to talk about the pros of the study or now I'm gonna talk about maybe what wasn't done so well. Just make you sound a lot more kind of coherent and just make sense and you're easy to follow then so they can kind of tick off whatever boxes they're doing and prepare to defend yourself when questioned. Sometimes you might say something that's really obvious, but they might just kind of challenge it anyway. And it's just to see how much you're fully understanding what you're saying. And also just looking at your confidence, don't fall apart and don't backtrack on what you've said, just kind of defend yourself and just say it again in maybe slightly different wording. OK. I'll pass over to n great, thank you very much. Um So, yeah, just second everything that GV was saying, but particularly that your, your appraisal does have to be balanced. Um So that you're not kind of just being one sided about things. So I just wanted to take you through a bit of a structure that both of us used in terms of um in terms of appraising papers and this is very common. You might have come across it at medical school. Um But this is really the heart of the structure that we used and then we, we found some things to add on alongside it. But the main thing that you're going to be thinking about is um po so if you haven't heard of this before, this stands for the population, all the patients, um the intervention or exposure that they underwent what group they were compared to and what the outcomes were. So, in other words, like you can see on the slide, uh who are the patients? So, you know, this was a study looking at 400 type two diabetics with heart disease, for example. So just to contextualize what was happening, um and then the intervention or the exposure, now this will depend on the type of study that you have. So if you've got um an interventional study, so something like a randomized control trial, then you could say uh well, the intervention was using a new drug, um versus a placebo. But if you've got a cohort study, for example, then you might be looking at an exposure as well instead. So you might be looking at um, smoking, for example, and how smoking affects outcomes in people with diabetes and then you want your comparison. So this isn't always a placebo in the case of RCTS. So if you've got a, if you've got um, uh a disease that's called established treatments, and often it will be the case that a new drug will be trialed against existing therapy rather than against placebo. So you need to make it very clear what the groups are and what the, what the comparisons are and then the outcome. So not just what happened. So this trial showed that this drug was far better than the other drug, but what the investigators were actually collecting in terms of the outcome. So primary outcomes, what they were most interested in as well as secondary outcomes. So other things that they might have measured. So I'm going to go back to the diabetes example, a primary outcome in diabetes might be HBA one C but secondary outcomes could be things like um weight loss or reduction in cholesterol, things that go alongside with diabetes. So by using this structure and by sort of jotting down on a piece of paper, what comes under each of these categories, you can set yourself up really well, talk about the abstract. You might find that some of the interviewers ask you generally to tell them about the abstract. And if that's the case, then I would always start off with this structure and actually sign posts like Javi were saying. So, you know, this was an abstract looking at XY or Z the population we studied was the intervention was and they were being the group, the intervention group were being compared against X and the outcomes were this. So um it's a really good structure. I would definitely bear it in mind um when you're reading the abstract, but also when you're um preparing what you're gonna be saying, we just move on to the next slide. But really, we thought it was a good idea to expand this a bit more. And we credit this to imperials medical education society and um this doctor who put this framework together and there's a really good presentation online that I would recommend Googling because I think it helped and, and I quite a lot. So I found this quite nice personally, in terms of expanding po and forcing me to think about other things within the abstract that I might not have thought about otherwise. So you can see this new sort of acronym, which once you learn, it is actually quite easy to remember. So starting off with a question and relevance. So it's quite nice if um somebody tells you to tell, you know, tell me about this abstract instead of quickly launching into PICO, saying that this was a, an abstract of a trial looking at this question and it's really relevant because type two diabetes is on the increase or um is a, is a very serious condition that needs treating. And then you go on with your po with A K at the end to remind you to talk about key findings because a lot of the time, if you've just got o for outcomes, it's easy to say. OK, well, the primary and secondary outcomes measured were XY or Z, we're not actually talking about the findings and then you've got this other bit which is to do with the internal validity of the study. Um So internal validity is basically how good the study itself was. Uh And this framework forces you to think about things like recruitment. So who were the patients, how were they found um allocation? So were they randomized? If so how maintenance were they kept in the trial if they were lost to follow up was that accounted for, um what were the baselines in both groups? So, if you've got a diabetes trial where the groups well matched at baseline in terms of age, in terms of sex, in terms of HB A one c et cetera, uh whether there was any blinding uh the outcomes of the trial and statistical analyses that were used. And when you're thinking about going through these things, it's not just about making a list of OK, they were recruited like this or they were allocated like this or they were blinded like this. But thinking about whether that was appropriate for the particular abstract or trial that you're reading. So for example, if diabetes, um so if we were thinking about, I don't know why diabetes is just run to mind because there's all loads of people with diabetes today. But um if we were thinking about a diabetes trial, an appropriate outcome is probably HB A one C because it's easily measurable. Um and it gives you a good reflection of blood glucose over the past three months. So if a trial had HB A one C in it, then I would be quite happy. Um Whereas if it had say fasting plasma glucose instead, then I might make a comment on. Well, this is great because it gives us sort of a snapshot of what's happening, but it's not giving us a longer term uh picture of what's happening with blood glucose control. So it's about really critiquing all of these things and thinking about the pros and cons of each of them and then you've got the third bit, sorry, the fourth bit. So the resources and population. So this is to do with the external validity of the trial. And this is basically how Generali the trial is to other settings. So if you've got a really, really super specialist unit that can do a really special procedure or a really special operation, then you might find that the external validity of a trial run in that center on that condition is actually quite limited because if another center wants to do the same thing, they might not be able to, they might not have the resources to do it. And another thing to think about is population. So in my example of diabetes, you only doing it in one ethnic minority or are you doing it in multiple ethnicities and therefore allowing it to be more Generali to the wider population and then the ends of funding ethics. In conclusion, I think are really important and are quite sort of are ignored a lot of the time. But if you've got a trial looking at a new drug and you see at the bottom, it's funded by a pharmaceutical company, then of course, that's something you want to talk about within your critical appraisal. You'd probably say that, you know, this isn't necessarily a weakness because you would hope that conflicts of interest, et cetera are managed. However, it's important to bear in mind that this trial was sponsored by a drug company and therefore they might have an interest in making, um, the drug look like it works and also ethics. So if you've got an RCT, obviously RCTS have a lot of ethical issues, can have a lot of ethical issues. So talking about that, if you see that a trial is registered, for example, then it means that it's past basic ethical approval. Um It's really important to think about things like that and then uh just bringing it all together with a conclusion. So I would say this slide was probably the most helpful thing for me in terms of learning how to appraise a paper. I have to say I didn't read the books that Janie had mentioned. I know that a lot of people have, but I thought this was really good and when I was er preparing for my interviews, when I was doing mo interviews with my friends and when I was on, you know, actually preparing the things I was gonna say for the actual interview, I did use this framework to have a think about internal validity, external validity, all of the other factors rather than just looking at at po itself. So in summary, this is what I've been talking about. So um give them a brief summary of the abstract, what is the question? Why is it relevant? Is it irrelevant? Now, sometimes you will get old papers. Um Javie was saying that, you know, read as many abstracts as you can and I would agree with her, but the examiners in a lot of places know that you will be doing that and therefore might pick trials that are slightly older. So I think my one was from 2019. Um So it was a slightly older trial, so I wouldn't be thrown off by that. Um We have obviously things vary depending on deanery. But for the most part, the academic interviews do go like this in terms of crazing an abstract. And then the second part is reviewing it, commenting on biases and validity, other important points. And finally, how does it apply to clinical practice and how could it be taken forward? So like Javi said a nice way to escape this question really is to be honest and say I wouldn't do anything based on this is just one trial and I probably wouldn't change my clinical practice based on the results of the trial. Although it does pose important questions for future research. I might want to look at a meta-analysis, I might want to go and have a look at other similar trials and see if they come to the similar, you know, similar conclusion or the same conclusion. Um But yeah, so talking about bringing it back to clinical practice is important because you have to remember that while you are applying for the SFP, the academic bloc is actually only an eighth of your time as a foundation trainee. So you have to remember that you are primarily a clinical sorry six, you are primarily a clinical trainee. Um So bringing it back, bringing back, bringing the the conclusions back into clinical relevance is always a good thing to do. Um and then your immediate questions to consider. So why did they actually do this study? Which comes back to what I was saying before about relevance? What type of study is it? So, is it interventional, is it observational? Is it a randomized controlled trial? Uh Is it an observational study, a cross sectional study, a cohort study, a retrospective cohort study, et cetera and was whatever design that was used appropriate where the ethics and governance standards met. So that's what I was talking about before and how does it relate to the pillars of medical ethics as usual? So in terms of what type of study more often than not, um you'll get RCT S to appraise because those are higher up in the standard of evidence and are also important to be able to consider and to appraise. However, don't be thrown if you do get a different type of study, I would say, as you go on with your practice, I would start off with our CTS and keep that going on for a couple of weeks. But um intermittently throw in other studies as well. And I would throw in things that, you know, trip you up. So for example, I always get confused between what a retrospective cohort study is versus a case control study. And so when I was practicing, I said to one of my friends, please try and spring one of these on me every so often. Just so I keep on top of it kind of force me to study what they were. So, um, definitely learn about the pros and cons of each type um when they should be used and whether it's appropriate for the clinical question that's being answered. OK, if we can get the next slide, um fine. So definitions to learn and to understand that we didn't give you definitions for all of these we could have. But the reason we didn't was because everyone has their own way of phrasing things and learning somebody else's way of saying things is um not that helpful. It does sound quite unnatural at times. So just gonna give you a couple of seconds to have a read through this list while I have a glass of water. Um It's not exhaustive but everything in there is pretty fair game. I would just add like, don't focus on learning exact definitions, word for word. Um I think it's more important that you understand what these things mean than um actually a definition because they could just ask you like, what do you think about this, in this paper, it won't be define it, but you really need to understand it. So it's not actually as awful a list as it looks. Once a lot of them cross over. So once you learn a few, it all kind of makes sense. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. That and, um, like Javi were saying, you don't always need to, you don't always need to define them. Sometimes it helps if you can bring in definitions just to show that you know them. Um But yeah, understanding what they actually mean is really important. And um again, practicing these with your friends. So getting if you, if you know there's something that you really struggle or stumble upon then asking people you're practicing with to, to ask you those questions and just refine how you're going to explain things. Um I think is the most important thing to do. So, yeah, that's that slide. All right. So now we're going to do a bit of practice. Um Hopefully, you can read the abstract clearly if there are any issues, pop them in the chat and we can send you a link. But we thought it would be useful for you guys to have a look through this abstract for about five minutes and we'll ask you for some ideas on how you would appraise this. Um But also we're going to go through a very short mock interview. You'll have to forgive us both because it's been about a year since we've done this and I'm sure that we're very rusty and there are things that we won't think of that you would have thought of, but we'll try our best anyway. So just have a read through. And if you need the um abstract in the chat, do let me know. And while you're reading this, um, every dean read is different. But in London, for example, you would have, I think 13 minutes or 15 minutes or something as a specific number to look at both this and the clinical scenario. IGV said you will have to prioritize your time and split it accordingly according to how you want to split it. But also be told that you can write notes on a piece of paper more often than not. And again, you can split that piece of paper how you would like, right? Generally. Do you think we should start talking about the abstract or should we ask for some ideas first? You don't mind. Um I think if you guys, why don't you guys put some ideas in the chat if you want to about what you guys think don't need a full appraisal, but just some ideas would be great. And then we can talk you through kind of a model I answer. So yeah, just pop in the chat, whatever you guys think I know it's better instead of saying it. So don't worry about any right or wrong answers to start off with if, what would people think the PICO is the population intervention comparison and outcome? Yeah. So good, good answer here. So, it's a relevant question because there's a high morbidity and mortality in this patient group. So that's definitely how I would start anyone for the PCO. If not, then we'll just press on and you can put your ideas in the chat as they come to, you just get started. So, it is. Oh, we have something. Oh yeah, that's a very good point funded by a farmer company might be. Yeah. Um So Nari is very kindly volunteered to go through an answer with us, but anything that either one of us miss out, just pop it in the chat and it's always good to like bounce ideas off each other and you'll find this as you practice. There are things you would never think of and your friends will think of and it's just a different way of going about things. So let near go for it. Ok? You wanna ask me a question? Um So please talk me through what you thought of this paper. Um ok. Sure. So this was a paper that asked a really relevant question first of all. So it asks the question of whether different BP targets impact upon the outcomes of cardiac arrest survivors who are comatose. I think it's particularly important because this is a patient population with a very high morbidity and mortality and it's also an area that we've got little knowledge in. So, what I'll do is um I can talk through the strength and some of the weaknesses or some of the weaknesses that I thought of with the study. But first of all, I'd just like to summarize it if that's ok. So the population being studied here was 789 patients suffering and out of hospital cardiac arrest from presumed cardiac causes and who were comatose. The intervention was um well, the intervention and the comparator groups really were um aiming for a target mean arterial pressure of 63 millimeters of mercury versus 77. And there were quite a few outcomes here that I thought were quite interesting. So the primary outcome was a composite of death uh or hospital discharge um with a clinical performance status of 3 to 4 within 90 days and then there were a couple of secondary outcomes as well. So uh the neuro specific LS which I'm not familiar with, but I assume is a marker of uh central nervous system function or damage. Um The marker scale which is used to measure cognitive ability and the modified ranking scale which is used usually after strokes to look at disability. And it showed that the there was no significant difference in the primary outcomes between both groups with a P value of 0.56 and a hazard ratio of 1.08. That with the confidence interval crossing one, which is why it wasn't significant. So would you like me to go on to the strengths and the weaknesses? Yeah. Ok, great. So, first of all, as I said, I think this was a really relevant study and it was, and it has clinical relevance. That's definitely a big strength. The other thing is that uh the study design, so double blinded RCT randomized control trial is entirely appropriate for this type of question because it can help you to attribute causality. There was also a very large sample size. So 789 I would like to see a power calculation, but I would think that it's a well powered study and the outcomes that were looked at. So um so things like disability, uh discharge from hospital with disabilities, death, etcetera are quite pragmatic and c clinically relevant. So the primary outcomes are things that we do look at is clinicians every day. Anyway, I'm not sure about the secondary outcomes, but I'll come on to talk about that later on. And it was also a registered clinical trial which meant that it met sort of the benchmark for basic ethical and methodological standards and also that the um the actual outcomes. So what they were looking at were registered beforehand. So it's not like the researchers could pick out what was significant because they'd registered the trial beforehand and told, um told the clinical trial's body what they would be looking at and it's also double blinded so that reduces uh detection bias or performance bias as well. Um And then some of the things that I'd like to know more about the study, I don't really want to call them negatives or cons because this is just the abstract and I'm sure a lot of these have been explained in the full study. Um But firstly, there's no report from this abstract on we've got the aim for the BP targets, but not necessarily how those targets were achieved. So, were different drugs used to do that or fluids? And were there any differences between those? Um we also don't know whether the BP targets were achieved. So if you said, OK, I want a map of 77 or 63 how often was it that people could actually achieve that map? And it was quite interesting that this was a double blind trial because I want to know a bit more about how BP was blinded from investigators. So from the clinicians treating the patients because obviously that's quite a difficult thing to do. Um And it comes with its own problems and also we don't know whether the secondary outcomes are validated. So mocha I know is used in dementia, but I don't know whether it's validated for use in this setting. And I don't know what the clinical utility of neuros specific ens is. It's not a test I've heard of. We want to have a look into that further. Um The other thing is obviously, we need to have a look at baseline matching and check that all of these people are matched well, at baseline, um and we don't know whether any of these patients have preexisting hypertension, any other comorbidities that might actually, that might impact upon their recovery, don't know whether any of them have preexisting hypertension either and actually whether aiming for a lower map for them might be running them too low and decreases their chance of recovery. And obviously, this was just one paper. So I wouldn't say that we should change clinical practice just on the basis of one paper. But um you, we could definitely look at further papers that look at similar questions and perhaps even meta analysis in the future. So in summary, I thought this was a really interesting abstract. Um I thought it was very clinically relevant, very strong. Um and, and entirely appropriate and I'd look forward to reading further research on this topic. OK. Um I'm just going to move on and ask you a few questions. So you mentioned during your appraisal um the hazard ratio and that's mentioned in the abstract as well. What do you understand by this? And how does this relate to the abstract? Sure. So I would start off by defining the term hazard at first. So hazard is the probability that an individual at a particular time point will experience an event. Um And the hazard ratio is the hazard in the treatment group divided by the hazard in the control group. So for example, if it was two, that would mean that twice as many people would experience an event at any given time here, the hazard ratio was 1.08 and that was the hazard ratio for the primary outcome. And that meant that in the intervention group um zero, just a few more people really were experiencing a primary outcome which was discharge, um which was discharge without significant disability than in the control group. And um you mentioned that this had ethical approval. What kind of things would you think about with the ethics on a randomized control trial like this? Yeah. So our CTS generally have ethical issues. So for example, giving somebody a placebo or something that might be less efficacious is always a concern. I think this particular population of patients raises, raises interesting questions because they are comatose. So presumably consent would have to be gained from family members or next of kin. Obviously, that's an ethical consideration to think about. And also what I want to know is what kind of safety monitoring was happening in this trial and whether there were any um whether there were any plans, I'm sure there were to terminate the trial early if one of the arms showed an unacceptably high risk or a very high efficacy. Thank you. And finally, um what were the advantages and disadvantages of a randomized controlled trial like this. Do you think this study design was kind of appropriate? So I do think the study design is appropriate because it's the best, it's the best study design there is to ascribe causality to something. Um The pros of an RCT in this setting are essentially that, that you can ascribe causality um to the intervention. Um And the, and therefore it produces a lot of high quality evidence. The cons are that RCT s aside from their ethical considerations are very resource intensive. Um And practically, they're quite difficult to do as well. Um So in this case, like I've said, blinding BP sounds like something that'd be quite hard to do. So those would be the main ones that I would stick to. OK. Thank you. Thank you very much for going through that. I know it's putting you on the a little bit. You gave me the real interview experience there and I felt myself waling, but it's OK. Um So that's kind of like the sort of structure I think near you probably had as well that you got to talk for a little bit and then they picked out questions to ask you, but like we said, we've heard many different experiences and sometimes you're interrupted a lot more. So just be prepared for either way. Um And I think um Christy, you just asked, how long are each of these stations So it like, it really depends on which Deaner you're applying for. Um So for, in London, for example, you have 10 minutes to do this station. Um And yeah, I think it really varies depending on what you're doing. So, for example, in London, the motivational question probably takes like a minute, a minute and a half to go through and then the rest of it is just like we just went through. Um So I think that's it from us. Um But there's a feedback QR code there and we'd welcome any questions. Yeah. And just to add to what generally said before some deaneries will even give you, I don't know if it's going to be the case this year, but they might give you the paper the abstract in advance to practice. So I know one of my friends who applied somewhere up north um had an abstract or a paper the week before. So you just need to have a look into that, have a look into what the format is in each place. Um But generally speaking, they're about 10 minutes. So questions that have come through what was talked about before the motivational questions section. Nothing really. We were just introducing everyone to the talk. Um Well, they only ask us to appraise an abstract or a clinical trial. So no basic science, I would say never say never. I don't know what Javi thinks about this, but I think uh it's most likely the case that you will have a clinical, uh, not, maybe not a clinical trial but something of clinical relevance rather than a basic science paper. Yeah, I would kind of clinical based, um, paper because that's kind of what they're looking at. Um, but obviously we can't rule anything out and we don't know what's going to happen this year. But the thing is as long as you have a structure to be honest, whatever kind of paper they give you, you can kind of work your way through it and don't be shocked with whatever you get. Yeah, I think actually both of us on our interview days, we were on different days had slightly strange papers compared to what we were expecting, but actually sticking to your structure and not getting phased by, it's easier said than done, but trying not to get phased by it is really the way forward. A lot of this interview is about projecting confidence. Um So if you're able to be confident with what you're saying, that's great, but it's also about acknowledging your limitations. So if you don't know the meaning of something, then actually just saying, you know, I'm actually not sure what this is. I would want to have a look at it or like I didn't know what that, that weird test was in that abstract. So I said, you know, I would assume it's this, but I'd wanna have a look into it a bit more, um, more questions. How long are each to the stations? What are the different types of stations you can expect? Um, all the different types of, I'm not sure if I fully understand the question, but um, just make sure you look on whichever Deanie you're applying for exactly what they, they'll specify what the interview process is and just make sure you practice according to that and going on to the question after that. So um what the structure is. So basically, it just depends on the dean. So I think I only applied for London. No, near did London and Oxford. So you can talk you through more about Oxford. But in London you have um so 15 minutes to prep both your clinical and your academic station. So they give you both things at the same time and then you have 10 minutes on the clinical station, 10 minutes on the academic station. And normally it, it depends on again what dey, but the motivational question is normally kind of bunched together with your academic stuff and it's more just like an opening question just to kind of get to know you at first. Yeah, I would agree. It also depends on what kind of SFP you're applying for. So you're in the research talk. So I assume you're applying for a research one. But if you are applying for things like education and leadership, then sometimes they have specific stations. So for example, teach topic or talk to us about leadership, et cetera. So yeah, generally speaking, it will be academic clinical, some deaneries have a slightly more integrated approach. Um Got another one. What's the motivational question you mentioned having 30 minutes for clinical scenario again, is that also part of the station? So um the structure varies by deanery um from London. Uh It's a, it's a 10 minute clinical interview, 10 minute academic interview and you have about 15 minutes to prepare for both of them beforehand. The motivational question is usually just an ice breaker. It just comes, comes in at the beginning of the interview, I guess with with whichever one they decide to start with first. Yeah, so just pop in any other questions you guys have. But really in summary, like don't be scared of this interview. It's I know it sounds very daunting because you probably haven't done a similar one before, but with practice and honestly, you've got more than enough time still. So with a lot of practice, everyone can be great at this. Just have a structure that you stick to. Um just had some more questions. Which deaneries did you both receive interviews from? Um So I only applied for London, I only had an interview for London then when I in London, now I applied for London and Oxford. I had interviews for both that ended up in London. So only two formal stations for London. Yes. It's not like an OSI So it's like, it's like a split, it's, it's a 20 minute interview, split into clinical and academic for London um two stations, but multiple questions in each. Exactly that. So they usually ask like four or five questions in each one. Um That kind of varies as well because the clinical one could be taught me through an A two E and then a couple of questions depending on how you get on. Could I provide the structure for the Oxford interview? It was a clinical station and an academic station just like this. Um So it wasn't too dissimilar from London are the panels the same for both stations in London? Yeah. So usually you have two or three interviewers, usually two, I think sometimes three, but you've got one who does the clinical one and then the other one does the academic one while the other one watches. So they just swap over and um panel for London could be like anyone. Some of them have a research background, some of them don't have a research background. It really varies and it could be a combination of anything. So I wouldn't, to be honest, I wouldn't really worry about who the panel is. I would kind of just focus on getting your answer right. And like, nourish, it's about being confident and being sure in your answers. I think it's a question about was the time for the, I have to admit I can't remember specifics but I do think it was around 10 minutes and 10 minutes is the clinical station related to the academic one. No, because no. So the clinical stations are usually we'll talk about this. More clinical stations are usually more acute medical emergencies. Common things that you'll see is an F one. The reason being uh because you will have one less clinical rotation. So they need to make sure that you clinically are good and you benchmark at a certain level. So, um no, they're not related, generally speaking, not to say they can't be, but they're not gonna ask you a paper on diabetes. And then actually, there's no reason they wouldn't ask you about DK A after that, but they won't make an effort to link them. No, I think in both of them va your time was ac which one you had? First? That was it, your time was up and then you move on to the next one. You don't go back to that one. But again, that will vary deary to dean. Um are the papers given on the specific? And no, they don't have any idea what SFP you've applied for. So in theory, like I wouldn't recommend it, but you could talk about whatever you want. So you would want to do it for whatever reason because they don't know what you've applied for. They just know that you've applied to London or Oxford or wherever. Um And yeah, the papers are throughout the day. Normally the same for everyone. But again, they might change things year this year. Um, it really, because I think a lot of things are changing this year so we can't say for sure what's gonna happen. Yeah, exactly. They do vary from day to day, obviously. But they don't, um, they don't, uh, they, yeah, they, they will give everyone, they'll try and give everyone a similar standard of paper from our experience. It didn't really happen but they try to do that. So all day should ideally be the same difficulty or, or easiness. Um when is the clinical interview or not? We will send the date out. Um I think uh we've got the 17th of October currently penciled in, but we will let you know if that changes, but it should be that is the clinical station in the A two E or can it be different format? So it varies from Deanie to Dean. Um Usually it will usually um the London and Oxford ones will, will be focused around an A two E. That's not to say the A two E is the entire station. Often if what I would really recommend having a look at the applicant handbook, for example, scenarios, but they might ask you to prioritize things. So for example, give you three or four patients and ask you who you'd see first and then do an A two E or talk through an A two E and I found personally when I was doing the clinical scenarios, it was less about the mechanics of the A two E things but showing that you can practically do the job that you need to. So small things like, oh, you know, ok, fine. I'm being called to somebody, but I'm doing something else. I would ask the nurse on the phone if they could do a cannula, they could take some bloods, do A BBg, et cetera, do an ECG small things, like bring the patient's notes by the bedside, that kind of stuff that shows you can actually do the job as well as do the A two E uh but they can be different formats. Was that for Aud Dearies? What question was that was that for Aud Dearies? Just while they're typing the question. And again, um I would just say, don't worry about kind of getting a hard abstract or an easy abstract. I don't think that's what they, they're not looking for, like an expert at research or an expert at critically appraising papers. Um You kind of are judged on an equal level. So don't worry like, like Nara said, we both have very weird papers but you know, everything works out. You um you prepped enough that the papers are not specific to apply for. I think that is correct me if I'm wrong. No, I don't think they have access to what you've applied for. Yeah. The only thing that would be specific is the type of program, like I said. So if you applied for an education SFP or if you applied for a leadership SFP, they might ask you specific things to do with that. But the academic ones, they don't have, they, they don't know you, they don't know who you are. Yeah. OK. Perfect. So if there are any more questions, just let us know um otherwise uh tune into our next webinar, which is probably gonna be like, I think the 17th of October and we'll talk to you guys through the clinical paper, but we, we have some more questions about London. There are many different entry dates. Are you aware of how they call applicants? So, from my experience, they kind of release a bunch of times at one in one go and it's first conversa and then I think this year from their handbook, it sounds like they're gonna do that on two different dates. So I assume they're gonna do half of them on one day and half on another day. But to be honest, it is all just first come first serve and there's no real fair way of doing it. Um So just make sure that time that um the day that they have it, you are free, you have your laptop, you have your phone, you can do that quite easily if you have a very specific day in and day in mind. If you are called for an interview, there are more than enough slots. So you will definitely get one. And honestly, like we said in our last uh webinar, I wouldn't worry too much if you're not bothered about getting the first date or the getting the last date, which I think is what most people want. Um There's only so much preparation you can do. Um So don't worry about if you get the first date and you wanted the last one. If that makes sense. Ok, perfect. So if there are any more questions, obviously, still put them in the chat, we'll be here for another few minutes. Otherwise you can email us. Our email is up there. Um Do they release offers a it's I would recommend reading the applicant guide. It's got all of the dates in it and it will be more up to date than we than the advice we can give you because we applied last year. But from what happened with us, they released all of the interview offers together and said book it and they release the dates on two different days. But everyone who got an interview knew on the same day, they won't keep releasing interviews as far as I'm aware after each interview cycle. Oh, release offers. Do you mean job offers? If you mean job offers that happens all at once because obviously they can't offer some people jobs because then there would be none left by the time the last interview day that a bit weird. OK, so um good luck everyone for your prep. Uh let us know if you do have any more questions or anything. Um And we really appreciate you filling out the feedback form. Otherwise we hope to see you in about just under two weeks time for our last webinar on the clinical uh station. Thank you. Bye guys.