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Summary

This teaching session is a Q and A about the Portfolio Clinic research program, co-founded by Sergeant and Shiv. They aim to launch a six-month mentorship program to support doctors with their career development, with a particular focus on helping those who are in non-training grade positions. The program is developed by doctors for doctors and has grown over the last three years from a small group to a team of over 15. They have helped doctors secure specialty training posts, feel more confident in their work, and streamline their career opportunities. The Portfolio Clinic research program is intended for resident doctors in the UK looking to get into specialty training. The program will include near-peer mentorship, various career-focused events, and e-learning opportunities. The ultimate aim is to increase candidates' confidence, manage their career development, enhance their portfolios, and improve access to specialty training. In the interactive Q&A session, the team takes questions from attendees about different aspects of the program, including potential benefits for senior medical students, and guidance on the MSRA.

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Description

If you are planning to apply for speciality training and are looking for some in depth, personalised support along every step of the process, you do not want to miss this event!

The Portfolio Clinic is excited to announce the relaunch of its formalised mentorship through the 'Portfolio Resus Programme'. This 6 month programme has been carefully crafted to incorporate personalised mentorship, e-learning and live events which will overall focus on gaining points for speciality application, obtaining interviews and tailored preparation to ace the interviews.

Our programme will be commencing from September 2024.

This Q&A session by The Portfolio Clinic will allow you to gain more information on the programme and ask any questions you may have.

Learning objectives

  1. To understand the structure, aims, and processes of the Portfolio Clinic's research program.
  2. To identify the specific specialties that the Portfolio Clinic can provide mentorship in, as well as any future areas of expansion.
  3. To understand the role of mentors in the program and the benefits of near-peer mentorship in career development.
  4. To learn about the different portfolio domains and how to maximize points within each domain for self-assessment scores.
  5. To familiarize oneself with the expected outcomes of the program, such as improved confidence, developed portfolio, and improved access into specialty training.
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Computer generated transcript

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The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.

Hello to those of you who are out there. Um I just want to double check if everybody can hear me, if somebody could just drop a, a comment in the chat, that would be very helpful. Just to confirm whether they can hear me. If not, I'll make that assumption that everyone can hear me looks like I'll be making that assumption that everyone can hear me then that's fine. Um So just wanted to say welcome to, to those who are um have joined us today this evening. II feel that there will be a few more joining um As the evening goes on um to this session, this is AQ and a session with about the Portfolio Clinic research program. This is a six month program that we're very excited to launch and we want to give those prospective mentees a bit more information and an opportunity to ask us questions about exactly what this program will entail. I'm Sergeant. I'm one of the co-founders of the Portfolio Clinic and alongside me who's also going to be answering questions this shift and he is the other co-founder of the Portfolio Clinic as well. So I think it's now it's gone past five past seven. So we might as well start. I think um we'll give you a bit of an overview of what the portfolio clinic is. We'll discuss the program in a bit more depth, give you an overview of what it entails. And then we will also give you opportunities to ask questions in order to ask the questions. If you simply type the questions into the chat that you weren't answering, then we'll be able to answer the questions for you. So without further ado should we start the presentation? We've got a small presentation at this point in time. So just going to start off with regards to what the Portfolio Clinic is, as I mentioned, myself and SIV are the co-founders of the Portfolio Clinics. It is an organization that we started roughly around three years ago. It's a social enterprise which supports doctors who and their career development. So the main aim that we, that we had initially was to support nontraining grade doctors in really sort of trying to figure out what they wanted to do in their career and try and guide their path throughout their career because we know that a career in medicine is theoretically streamlined. But actually the journey can take many different forms and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming and overbearing. And so we created a peer, a near peer um mentorship service. Er this was developed by doctors and it's for doctors and initially it was myself and, and shiv er with a small group and now we have a team of over 15 organizational members um with um a number of mentors and mentees who have gone through um the iterations of the portfolio clinic and the mentorship service that we provided over the last three years. Um And we've supported a number of doctors in reaching specialty training posts, posts that they necessarily didn't feel that were achievable at a certain point in time in a location that they desired. Um And also supported doctors are feeling more confident in the work that they are conducting on a day to day basis and also making them feel a lot more streamlined in terms of their career opportunities and through the work that we've done and the feedback that we've received and the experience of our mentees, they've spread the message and we've managed to obtain work and support from other organizations and develop relationships with the Royal College of Surgeons, for example, the healthcare Leadership Academy and also medal as well. So that's sort of a brief overview of where we've come, what we've done. And yeah, exactly what the portfolio clinic stands for. Sure. Do you want to? Yeah, I can cover the the portfolio recess program. So um this is probably the the primary reason for you joining today to find out a little bit more about the portfolio research program. Um So this is our flagship new mentorship program that we've developed um using the three years of experience we have. Um and it's going to be a six month program tailored for resident doctors who are working in the UK and are looking to get into specialty training. Um Currently, we have mentors that can provide support for entry into anesthetics. I MT um So internal medicine, core surgical training, pediatrics and radiology, um we're looking to expand that, but for this cohort, that's the sort of um demographic we're looking to support. So if you're looking to get into any of those specialties, we can provide you with a near peer mentor who can help guide you um over the course of six months. Um in terms of what the portfolio research program is going to support you with, there's three elements to it. So the first one as um I've already described is a near peer mentorship. So um you'll be allocated a mentor who can meet with you virtually through our own online platform and you can schedule in with them at a time that suits you and help work through your career goals, whether that be developing a certain element of your portfolio like Q I or research or just talking about your career and deciding, is this the year for me to apply to special training or do I potentially want to take a year out to travel or, you know, boost my portfolio? We're also gonna be running events um So um we're gonna be doing some virtual events and maybe even an an in person event too. Um And these will be really around the key portfolio domain. So there'll be an event probably on research, one on education, um Q I um And, and really taking a deep dive into them to see how you can maximize the limited time you have um to really gain the most amount of points on self assessment scores um or gain the most so that you can talk about it at interview. Um And then later on in the event schedule, we'll do basically an interview masterclass. So you'll be able to join with mentors and also have meetings with your own personal mentor to sort of guide you when it comes to that interview. Um because it's very specific to the different specialties that you're applying for. And then the final element is e-learning. So new to this uh this um program, we're creating e-learning modules again on the specific portfolio elements to really give you a bit more guidance as to what's expected when you reach the application stages and interview stages and how to sort of maximize your time. And the overall aims of the program are to improve your confidence when you're applying, helps you to develop your portfolio and give you support you on that motivation and tips and tricks to really send you on your way when you are working clinically, it's difficult we understand that working clinically and sort of maintaining a portfolio is really challenging. So we have mentors that can really help you with that and give you some guidance. And then finally, our final aim is to improve access into specialty training. Um because there is a significant bottleneck in getting into the training pathways such as CST I MT Anesthetics, pediatrics, and radiology. And so we really want to help you get into not only the training program, but hopefully even a training program in a desired location, we can probably come to this. Do you want to talk about this now? Serge or should we look for some questions? Yeah, I think let's let's open it up to the audience. So there's individuals who are with us today. If you have any questions or anything that you want to um have clarified at this point in time, just simply drop a message in the, in the chat for us, I guess whilst we're waiting for that, we can briefly talk about um the I MG Research Careers program and the results and then maybe we can answer any questions that come through. So we do have a question that's come through actually. So, um er Ra Omar, thank you so much for your er your question. Will this program beer also be available to senior medical students? Um So this is something that we, we discussed in, in in depth with regards to the appropriateness of uh of fifth year medical students and those who are in their final year going to the foundation training um at joining this program, this program. So previously, um the discussions that we had around this program with regards to um who would get the most out of the program. And ideally the individuals that we feel would get the most out of the program because of the six month sort of nature of the initial bit of the program. And the fact that it runs during that sort of application cycle, we felt that the individuals that would probably gain the most from the program would be those who are actively applying for specialty training. And those are the individuals who for example, are in F two or a nontraining grade doctor or a trust grade doctor who are actively looking to apply for specialty training. Having said that if you are a final year medical student or going into foundation training, um the following year, we do also understand that with how competitive training is these days because of that bottleneck, because of the increasing number of individuals applying for specialty training and the the lack of increase in the number of places is really important to get ahead on your portfolio. And actually, this program can also help with if your goal is to sort of develop your portfolio for the long term, this program will, will definitely help you in in developing those areas such as Q I or research or teaching that those who are not necessarily applying immediately for specialty training um will um will, could also benefit from this as well. So essentially what you're saying, Sarges, um it's not really, er, the, the application isn't really for medical students as per per se, it's more for those applying for specialty training and those that are gonna be doing that in the near future. So they are F one doctors. Um I II, is that fair to say? I think that's very fair to say. I think in the future we'd like to extend it beyond that and look at senior medical students and how we can best help them. But at the moment, we have to focus on those that most need the support that we're providing and what a six month program si said is most suitable for in preparation for specialty training. Um We've got another question from Anurag er will this program help with the M SRA guidance? Um Yes. So um so many of our mentors will have not necessarily been through the M SRA themselves. Um Some of them will have so not all the mentors would have had um specifically taken it nevertheless, um they will be well versed on what the M SRA involves. Um We're gonna have e learning modules on the M SRA in terms of how it works. Um And then we, we know of with an organization, plenty of resources that we can share with you um to help you work towards um doing well in the M SRA. Um So yeah, there will be some guidance. There won't be any specific training on how to do well in the actual exam. Um For example, there won't be any mock tests or any question banks that we provide. Um But it will be more about what, what the examination involves um and how, how sort of best to prepare for it um logistically. So just while we're waiting for some more questions to come through, so do you want to tell us the timelines for this? So when, when do the applications, when do they open? And when does the program start? When do they close? Yeah. So um this program, as I've mentioned, the the six month program that we are running initially um is mainly based over that key sort of application period. So this program will start um in September and will run through till sort of the end of February. The idea behind that is the fact that that's that period where um most specialty applications will go in around sort of end of November start of December time. So it gives you an opportunity to try and score quick points on the portfolio. Um If that is your goal, especially in areas such as quality improvement and teaching and the presentation aspect as well. Um Then following on from that, the latter stage will involve preparing for the interview so sort of thinking about clinical scenarios, clinical cases, interview techniques, um the the describing your portfolio and things that might come up in an interview as well. Um So that's sort of the, the reason why we're running it from September to to end of February at this point in time um in terms of the application period, so applications are um are open now. So if you want to register as a mentee, it's open and will remain open um until the, the middle of August. Um So that is a rough overview of timelines. Yeah, I'm just gonna post a L the link um in in the um chat for the registration. If you haven't done it already, I presume most, well, most of you, at least some of you will have registered already um in terms of some of the other key dates. So we've had our first short listing. So um we've had our initial short listing, but there will be another short listing period, early next month. Um So it's, it's sort of quite key to get your uh applications in as soon as possible because for those that are registering, it will be first come first served if they're eligible. Um And, and they sort of meet the shortlisting criteria from our perspective um in terms of when the application is open till it's open till the 16th of August. Um But if we fill up the spots before then, then we'll obviously close it early. Yeah. And then um as sergeant has mentioned, it will be a September start. So there'll be an orientation towards the end of August start of September um talking the mentees that are on the program through what's going to happen. Um And then we'll progress every six months. Great. Uh I think that's all for dates I put in a link for their registration. Um Where should we go to next? Should we talk a little bit maybe about just while we have it here. And before we forget a little bit about our results um from the I MG Surgical care program. So um this was a program that we ran um with the support of Royal, the Royal College of Surgeons of England um from January er this year and it's lasting a year and it had a very similar um structure. It didn't have the E learning, but it had near pay mentorship and it had events and the idea with this was with the surgeons to help guide international medical graduates specifically who are interested in surgical careers. Um And over the course of, you know, the last six months, that's what's been happening. They've been allocated a near peer mentor who's helped them guide them, given advice on how to best develop their portfolio in line for the CST self assessment schools, um which is an essential component of the shortlisting criteria for CST training. Uh and what we found at our our mid mentorship results were that the mentees in our program and they were, I think just under 40 mentees had a 70% increase in their CST self assessment scores. Um So quite a big development in their, in their portfolio and also their confidence um in things like Q I research and teaching experience increased dramatically. So from Q I, it went from um this is the strongest confidence level. So on a, on a scale of um I think it was 0 to 7, um 38% at six months had er the strongest confidence in Q I, likewise, 19% in research and 43% in teaching experience. So I think we're very proud of that and I think we're taking that um as a fe you know, to say that what we're doing is, is feasibly really supporting um the demographics of our mentees. Um And hopefully we're gonna see similar results like this for our portfolio recess program, if not better really? Because we're adding sort of the e-learning component onto it. Great. I'm just gonna take this back here and then, so do you wanna talk a little bit about how um if you're on the program, how are you allocated a mentor? Do you get to choose your mentor? Do you like get allocated one independently? Definitely. So, so when it comes to er allocation of mentors, um when you register, obviously, er we ideally, we want to try and pair you with a mentor in your specialty of interest. So if you're interested in er applying for core surgical training, we would want you to have a mentor who is a core surgical trainee. So this will be part of the registration process where you, you, you tell us what specialty essentially that you are interested in pursuing. From that point on, we sort of handle the rest. So we will um match you with a mentor within that specialty and that will be the mentor that you will conduct the program with and we will have your mentorship, your portfolio clinics with. Um That's the first level because of demand and supply of mentors. Um We do think that we'll be able to allocate everybody to a mentor that they're interested in in terms of the specialty that they're applying to. However, our second sort of demographic will be with regards to certain aspects of the portfolio. So say, for example, you are somebody who really wants to try and improve your ability to publish and get into research. We would then we've screened our mentors and we know which ones of our mentors have specific areas of interest within the portfolio. And what we'll be able to do then is try and assign you a mentor who has a bit of understanding or knowledge of a specific area of the portfolio. So for example, research, so that's sort of our second second characteristic that we would want to try and er pair you with, we will handle the matching of the mentors. We, ideally in this program, it's a six month program. We want our mentees to meet with the mentors once a month, so six times over the six months. And this is um a, a part of the, the program that is essentially mandatory um when it comes to the portfolio clinics because we want, in order to get the most out of the program, we want you to um have that regular contact with your mentors so that they're able to sort of give that overview and, and direct you. It's not necessarily creating new goals or, or creating new challenges over over each meeting. And in each month, it may just be sort of just a check in, for example, to make sure that you are heading in the direction that you want to head in um in order to achieve your overall goal. Great. Uh So he doesn't look any more questions coming through. Um sh what should we talk through next? Uh how they, how they meet with their mentors, how they meet. So, I guess uh yeah, so once you're allocated a mentor in our program, the, the way you meet with uh your mentor is via our platform. So we've got something called a mental hub which you'll provide er you'll be provided with login details. Um And using that you'll be able to um jump on and um find your mentor on our ment hub and book him with them, um where they'll be presenting their schedule, their calendar um with sort of regular occurrences for you to book in with them. So you'll be able to book in at a time that suits you and them for sort of 30 minutes to an hour meeting. Um And we're hoping that our mentees book in sort of at least once a month um really to follow up with their mentor and see if they're achieving their aims. Um So that's mostly about how they book in. Um Should we talk about um what happens if they don't achieve necessarily this, the goals that they want to in the six months? Yeah, definitely. So, um the, the idea of this program is that we want that six months to be really um a useful period and we don't want, you know, you know, we don't want you to be hanging around, you know, longer than you feel is necessary within the program in the sense that once you achieve your goals, whether that be developing those portfolio elements or getting into special training, which will happen sort of within that six month program, then we're happy that um we've helped you, you know, as much as you needed it and then you can graduate from the program. There will be some people who after the six months either because they, they didn't get into specialty training still or um they're, they're looking to apply in, in more than a six month period or they're applying next year, for example, um it might be that they need a little bit more support than that six months. So, um we will be offering for those on the program, an extension of that six month to another to a full 12 months in total. So you'll be able to meet with your mentor for a total of 12 months just to finalize any extra bits that you wanted to, to get on track for. Um I guess a full year of support and achieve any goals that you didn't quite achieve in the six months. Um I think it's probably important at this point. Now, we've covered, I guess most of the programs are to talk about the cost. Um So this is obviously something we're gonna be charging for this year. Um And it's um for the, for this year, it's an introductory offer of 79 to 7999. Um And that's gonna get you access to all of the different elements of the program, including the near pay mentor, the e learning and the events. Um So do you wanna talk a little bit about what we do with our, the money uh as a social enterprise as a not for profit? Um And where we invest that? Yeah. So I think that this was um it's important to highlight the fact that this was a um a decision that wasn't taken lightly. I think that as the, the organization, the Portfolio Clinic as it is, we've always tried to reduce the barriers that junior doctors face. However, in order to try and improve our service and maintain our service, um we need some stability when it comes to funding. And so the decision has been made on this occasion once now that we refined the product and we've really made this product a statistically proven useful product, the time has come to, to introduce this fee. Um So a lot of the, so as you have mentioned, we're a not for profit organization. So none of the money that's taken from, this is pocketed by us at all. Everything goes back into the organization and that's a very key stance that we have. And what we want to do is to try and improve the service as much as we can with the money that's raised from this. And I think it's important to, to also note that with the, with the price, we've done our market research as well with regards to the introductory price that's, that's been put forth for 7999. It's important to note that individuals who we sent survey data out and actually individuals who are on these sorts of six month programs, interview portfolio preparation courses would pay a lot more than what we were initially introducing as our price. So this is something that would be extremely useful. I think for those who are applying for specialty training and at a subsidized price as well. But the the the money that we raise from this will go back into the organization, it will go towards trying to improve the interface between the mentors and the mentees, improve the access for the mentors and the mentees as well. Um in terms of, in terms of the function, what we want to do is try and create an all encompassing system that will help you document your journey with the portfolio clinic, the advice you receive and, and, and um also try and create a, yeah, as I mentioned, an all encompassing service um improve the learning um soft um modules that we have and also try to um increase the number of um and the different types of events that we have as well. Yeah, um I think you've covered that really well. So um we're really looking at reinvesting our funds. So, um as I've said into the platform, but also the ele modules, but also the mental support and making sure that our mentors are the most capable and confident mentors, they can be to ensuring that we provide enough training for them to make them to help them to support you as best as possible. So, we've got a couple of questions. So we've got one from um Radwan which is about um the mentors role. Um Do you want to cover that age and then I can cover the question. Yeah. So um the mentors role, so what we want is for our mentors and our mentors also receive training as well. So um we do have a standardization for our mentors so that you're not just sort of purely paired with an individual who we, we um don't know very well or don't really sort of have a background on to a certain extent. We ensure that there is a standardization process. Our mentors get training, they know how they're given the tools to try and maximize their experience and their opportunity with you and maximize your opportunity as well. Their role will be to enable you and empower you in order to develop your portfolio and also to improve your interview skills and your ability in order to try and obtain specialty posts. That's the main goal, there may be other goals that a mentee has which a mentor may also help you with um in terms of facilitating opportunities. I mean, I don't think that that we would particularly sort of put AAA ban or restriction on that, but it's going to be down to the mentors discretion in terms of how far they can facilitate an opportunity. The owners should really be on the mentee and the mentee should be empowered in order to become more autonomous in terms of their, their portfolio and their interview um skills and abilities. So I guess like a, a good example of that would be. So I think what rad one might be asking is like, if you know, he, they, he wanted to get involved in research, could the mentor um get them involved in a research project that they were doing? And I totally agree with you. Serge II, think the onus really is on the mentee and the mentor was there to enable them. Uh The mentor is not there to provide them with the opportunities. Um It's per maybe to advise them on how to seek out those opportunities. Um If you, you know, for example, er, coincidentally were interested in similar things and there was an av available opportunity on a joint project. Um I also agree, I don't think it would necessarily be a bad thing. I think it's a great way to network. Nevertheless, that is not really the primary focus of mentorship in mentorship. As you've said, the onus is on the mentee, whereas the mentor is there as a supportive guide for. So discretion, will this program have a checklist schedule um for men mental mentee? So, II don't know exactly what you mean by the by um a schedule. So, but what we do have is that we, we have a, a pro for a doctor which is filled out with each er session with the mentor. So every time a mentee meets with a mentor, they'll have this um document filled out, which will talk about the aims of the mentorship what was covered in the session and what the outcomes were and what agreed goals are. Um And that will then be shared with a mentee. Um What we're hoping for is for our mentees to meet with our, their mentor at once a month. So I guess in terms of a schedule, that's probably what should be happening. Um There may be an element of group mentorship as well because some of our mentors will have several mentees. Um that is, is yet to be fully delineated, but there may well be an element of 1 to 1 as well as group mentorship. Um So you talk a bit, I think maybe what you're referencing in terms of checklist is something to keep, you said, basically, something to keep in check, the program is delivered. So I think it's to ensure that the mentors do actually meet with the mentee. Essentially, there's no content that is 100% to be covered in those mentorship sessions. It's guided by the mentees. So um some mentees might be really confident in Q I but want support in developing that educational portfolio. Um So they might want to spend all of those sessions over the six months on education or teaching. Likewise, it might be the opposite for another mentee. We really don't make it well delineated because we want our mentees to have a personalized experience that's really guided or sort of tailored to them. Um The e-learning obviously is is accessible to all and will have specific learning objectives um which will be covered during them. Um And likewise, the events will have specific learning objectives that everyone um will hopefully have achieved by the end. I hope that answers your question, sir. I think we're probably approaching the time when we need to wrap up here serge. Um Is there anything else we, you think we need to cover? Um I think pretty much the main points. Uh So no worries, sir. So that's fine. I think that means that we've answered that question. Ok. Um I think pretty much the main points have been um addressed. Perfect. So I guess uh thank you very much for joining. Um We've put the link um to to our registration with the program in the chat box. Um Essentially it's just our website, www dot the Portfolio clinic.com. And then you can access the programs through that. And the one we're currently accepting registrations for is the Portfolio research program. That is what you've come here to, to hear about. Hopefully, we've provided you with the information um that excites you and makes you interested in applying for it. Um If we, you know, maybe haven't answered any of the questions um or, or maybe you come up with a question a couple of days in a couple of days time, feel free to message us, you can contact us through the website. Um and we'll, we'll get back to you in due course. But yeah, thank you very much for joining um and hopefully we'll see you on the program soon. Thank you very much everyone. Ok?