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Thanks. Hello guys. Good evening. All. Uh Hope you had a wonderful day so far. So we are live right now. Finally, uh This is our proposed webinar UK RST is just to give you an idea about radiology and the training program. Uh So I'm Jaren. I'm one of the ST one from uh in Birmingham. I'm a representative for U PR ST as well as ST ones associate rep in West Aing Academy. Oh, I'm, I'm taking this opportunity to introduce two of my senior colleagues uh who has been the flag bearers for UK RST since I know about this group and who has been extremely kind enough to share their space and time and knowledge to help every one of us. So I think uh I just want to introduce Abi Khan and Asim Kabu who are senior radiology doctors I told us. Right? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Jere. Um And uh hi, everyone, uh welcome to the UK RT event. Um I'm a, I'm a consultant neuroradiologist. Um I'm the founder of UKT and I'm very glad to see you all here. Um Our chief organizer is Dr Rahi Khan, who is a very passionate advocate of radiology training. And she has done amazing work over the several past several years to her trainees, just to give you a brief overview of you can understand what we do. So we started UKT about five years ago and the aim was to help more people join into the amazing field of radiology. And we have nearly 6000 members in our Facebook group. And as you know, we also have a dedicated group, there are nearly 700 applicants this year, which is, which is great. We organize more interviews for candidates every year which runs over like 10 or 11 days. And candidates have found it extremely useful. Over the last five years, we have had nearly 300 members from those interviews who got into training from our group, which, which is absolutely amazing. And I'm really very proud of that. We have also had great success at ST three interviews. And what we do with these interviews is the amount that we collect from these goes. Everything goes to charity. For example, last year we donated all the amount to the earthquake victims in Turkey. And we also donated to the Rnirnl I Coast Guard which helps refugees. So um it's quite a useful thing. So I would like to think that we are doing some good in the world. Yeah, and our support doesn't stop at ST one and ST three recruitments. We continue to support trainees and non trainees throughout the radiology journey. We have a dedicated group for trainees, which has more than 300 members. Uh We also continue to provide train support for fellowship and consult interviews. So it's more of a long term relationship that we have, which is, which is wonderful. Ah I wanted to really highlight one thing. One of our core values is to help others and to pass it on. And the prime example is this event, it is being delivered by radiology trainees. We once candidates like yourself. So I really hope you find this event helpful and I'm really looking forward to having you all as radiology trainees and hopefully you will help us deliver more of these teaching and training kind of events which, which will help a lot more people. So, um thank you all for coming and joining and finally, thank you all organizers for taking time to do this. It's uh much appreciated. You're doing a wonderful job. Abita Ogo. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. A so um a has basically covered everything about the Facebook groups and we are also trying to expand the program now. Um I have got lots of really great ST ones who have organized this webinar. Um So hopefully we're trying to recruit er UK RST reps now in every Dery and through that, we are trying to do some more projects, hopefully for next year now because we're quite short of time now. Um So, because the portfolio criteria has significantly changed. Um So we're trying to incorporate more like essay competitions or more postal competitions through UK RST, which will help you um at least for next year. Um So, um I have um I have some good team members and I'm sure they will take it forward. Um We'll just go through the introductions for all the speakers. Now, um Jarre, we'll start off with you and then all the people who are doing like MS R A and then GERD will also go through the feedback. Um Sorry, the format of the session and the feedback forms we will send at the end of the webinar. Please fill in the feedback forms which are really, really important for the speakers and also for us so that we can improve and then um hopefully for next year and for upcoming more webinars. So we know where to improve. OK. Thank you. Enjoy the session. Look over to you, Joan. Thank you guys retreating on what they have said. So uh they came over here to the UK, they went into the training program and uh they wanted to inspire people like us, I think last year or two years ago, I was exactly on the same position as all other members who are joining here, who, who had an idea about radiology. So UK RSG significantly helped all of us all of the people, those who here listen to, they speak today of ST one radiology in different parts of the UK. So you're getting their lifetime advice on what they found best and hoping you would, you can use their personal as advice to your benefit at some point. So I just retweeting on one of the ST ones in Birmingham, uh UK RST A rep and an ST one rep for my West Midlands in a academy. And just going through the schedule, I would say so to get into radiology, you have different sections that you need to focus on as a junior doctor. Uh It is the exams which is MS R A. It's the interviews which you need to get at the end. And the something that you have to start prepping very early is the portfolios. So everything has its own weight, age and benefits. So we have different people uh who are scored quite good at what they are and different, different sections and they're gonna explain about what they found best and they're gonna just elaborate on that. So uh for the first session without further ado I, I think it's better if we start the section first. Uh And I hope during the section, so the speakers would speak about themselves to introduce themselves. So we are starting with the most important part, which is the exams, uh what we call as multi multiple specialty recruitment assessment exam, uh which accounts for 40%. And it plays a big role in deciding whether you end up being a radiology registrar or not. So that's why for that we have, uh uh he is one of the ST ones and I'm just introducing him in UC alert and he's gonna start speaking about his experience and what best way forward to him. Sorry. All right. Turn over to you. Uh Nice to meet you. Uh Yeah, I, I'm gonna give a short talk on my experiences in sitting, MS re uh if you just move on to the first slide and apologies for my webcam. Um I, that's not that good at the moment. So I'll just have the audio. But uh for context, I was born in the UK, I did my undergraduate M BS at Bars Foundation training at Birmingham. And I applied to radiology during F two, I only made one application to see how I did and I unexpectedly ended up ranking in the top 1% of Africans. But ultimately, this ultimately, the stuff I'm gonna tell you in terms of my experiences should be taken with a pinch of salt. Thank you. Uh I, I would suggest you save your questions for me at the end um or, or in the dedicated Q and A session because there's quite a lot to cover you just next slide. OK. So with that being said, the MS R A is a computer based uh exam lasting about 100 170 minutes long consisting of two sections, sections. First of all the professional dynamics paper, which you have 95 minutes for 50 questions and clinical problem solving paper, which is about 75 minutes for 86 questions. Er, these sections are independently timed and you can't rush the professional dilemmas. For example, in 30 minutes you spend about 100 and 40 minutes on, on CBS. That's not possible. And you always have to do the professional dilemmas before the clinical uh clinical problem solving. Uh You do get a five minute break in between the papers uh which you should obviously use and uh there's no negative marking. So answer all the questions. I believe the dates for this cycle are January 4th to 14th, 2024. Uh As already alluded to um it should be stressed that this exam is ultra crucial to your radiology application and you should be really taking uh it, it should really take prior to you between now and and January, you have to realize that radiology is becoming increasingly popular with competition increasing year on year. Uh Last year, I was up against 3068 applicants. Um Even this year, there may be even 4000 Africans, let's say uh the main, the main hurdle is that the MS the, this is the main hurdle because uh your MS R A score will shortlist you for interview and also have a large influence on your final rank when added to your portfolio and interview score. I know some uh colleagues who had decent portfolio scoring 30 plus uh who didn't get shortlisted for interview er due to er bad MS R A scores. Uh ne next slide. So the clinical problem solving section should be the bulk of your vision as I will allude to later, all of the 86 questions will be based around a clinical scenario. Roughly half will be in the format of extended matching questions which give 8 to 8 to 10 answer choices. Uh you have to use for different scenarios. Each uh scenario is usually of the same speciality. And the other half of the questions will be single, best answers for a single scenario. As you can see, there's a wild uh a wide range of specialities uh tested. Uh You can see that this is mostly pertaining to medical specialities uh rather rather than surgical. But uh note that the rep reproductive uh health includes uh male and female, sexual health and, and g the questions will be focused around five domains um such as so investigation ie what is the best investigation for um patient diagnosis uh as in uh like what is the most likely diagnosis emergency? Um I what is the first line management in this emergency scenario? Prescribing related questions such as what is the first line antibiotic choice and sort of general management of of conditions uh such as what is the gold standard treatment? Uh and next slide. So my experience in uh talking about my experience in particular, I actually started revising uh quite, quite a lot uh four months starting in mid September 1 hour a day to begin with. Uh increasing to about 10 hours a day in the last few weeks. Um I had the benefit of that. My first rotation was in acute medicine which gave me a lot of working knowledge um day to day, but because it's so busy with the night, so it was difficult to revise. Uh My second rotation was in for psycho, which was actually very relaxing chill. I was not doing much. Uh So it's really good to get um the leave and time off. Um For those of you, uh you should have no problems with revision time in that respect. So in terms of question banks, I tried all popular, all four popular question banks available to me at the time and ultimately stuck with past med and MC Q bank. It was important to say that I also supplemented these questions with reading around the topics to actually understand the question rather than this pattern of recognition. Uh You also have to realize that uh at the end of the day that everybody is gonna do the same sort of question banks uh sometimes even two or three times. So I, I wanted a bit bit more of that of the edge. Uh personally I did past med once repeated all my incorrect answers. Did I did MGQ back twice. I focused on covering breath and, and not death. Uh At least, um, uh, at least I did this first. Uh I mean, I, I made sure that I knew all common things and easily testable stuff. Um, like similar to what I was tested on in finals, it can be de demoralizing to begin with, especially, um seeing as this for some of you may be your first examiner in multiple years since med school. Uh next slide. Yeah. So my, my vertigo question banks in particular, I found uh past medicine to be a sort of great starting point. Uh It had a large amount of questions and also quite nice textbook functionality to read around the answers. The most important thing was that for me, it had all the up to date guidelines. Uh There's also a knowledge tutor function with space repetition uh which is really good because I was quite lazy at the start. Um They had two mocks at the time which mirrored the Pearson view interface and was quite representative of the actual exam. Um You have to realize that a lot of people are going to use past med as a start starting point. Uh NCQ bank um was very close to the exam. Uh They actually had some past questions um previously asked, but um the interface was quite dry um as you had to score like 40 you had, you had to score like 78 pages of text in one go. I found that you mea and past this a bit too obscure and high level and did, did not reflect the guidelines uh which didn't really help me in revision. Uh Next slide. Yeah. So the resources I used to supplement my learning were the also the clinical handbooks, the Cheese and onion and also the offered clinical specialities, surgery book. And this is what the basic, this is basically the highest level of detail you would need to know for the exam, it can be dry. So I I read one section in one day. Um and I ultimately felt like my clinical practice as an F two would even improve. E even if I did not get into radiology. Um I also use the US MD step one first aid book and in particular, it had several pages of rapid review uh buzzwords uh so certain an image um which were really good and it, it was really, really quick fire um revision at the last couple of days. Uh also use US U SME Meta bullets uh which was also a good website for condensed information in bullet format. And uh next slide. So there exists an official whole practice paper online for 2022. Um But I felt that the pilots paper, this pit paper uh was a bit too easy compared to the real thing sitting the ex uh after like my sort of reflections after the exam, I felt like, um it's worth noting that a lot of the questions came randomly for a pool from a pool. So I didn't get the same questions as other test takers on all my friends. Uh In my sitting, there were pilot questions, but these were impossible to tell. I felt that some questions were vague with subtle wording such as, um such such as the nature of the pain described and sort of subtest these of the, of the age of the patient, uh which, which uh which made things quite difficult. And most of the times I was told by two equally possible, correct sounding answers, not all questions were sort of GP presentations, contrary to po co common belief in my exam particular, um which is, of course, randomly alleged to me, I had an abundance of pediatric sexual health and ophthalmology for some reason. Uh sometimes even like three or er two or three sort of question sets all related to ophthalmology uh ne next slide. So, uh this is a slide of some areas I would re revise if I had to sit the exam again. A fair few did not come, come up in my case. Um but I would still regard as being high yield for any sort of sitting. Um Unfortunately, some people are known to a realize the sort of vaccination schedule and child development stages. Uh I, I actually spent a considerable time of revising this fine muscle memory. Uh I didn't actually get any questions about it in the end. But the reason why I think it's important is that these do feature in past med and, and you back, uh it's also important to note that in the real exam, they may give normal values. But there are questions which want you to, I identify whether a lab value is either a severe, moderate or mild level. So uh for example, like hypercalcemia, for example, uh so it may be worth revising uh next slide and uh moving on to the professional dilemmas. Um You have 50 questions and 95 minutes, as I said, of these 50 questions, around half will be ranking questions where you rank the order of the five responses in terms of their approving this, the other half will be uh multiple, the other 25 will be multiple choice questions where you select the three best responses. Again, all of these will be based around a different singular clinical scenario. This section is supposed to test the professional attributes of professional integrity, coping with pressure, empathy and sensitivity and you have to answer these uh as if you are an fy two. Um It's important again to note that these, the answer to these questions will probably not affect real clinical practice and it's what you should do and not what you you would do in real life. Uh Next slide. Uh Yeah. The slight. Yeah. So yeah. And uh I can probably basically uh from my sort of experience doing the professional dynamic section, I can probably say that I only IA I can, I probably, I can probably say that I advised four months of CPS, but less than four days of professional dynamics. And the my message is used to use is that don't waste time revising too much of the professional dym. Um The reason is this, the reason is that I felt that the exam was so subjective. It's so um of obscure. And I, and I, I feel like the time could be better spent revising for clinical performance solving where marks are more clear cut. So for me, I only did the S TT papers uh from the, you know, the, the foundation, the foundation program, SE DS DP papers, which are were more or less a similar level and the singular 2022 MS R A private paper available. I also read the good medical practice document, but I felt this is quite generic and doing these sort of four days of revision. I felt that these didn't help me at all and I could have come up with the same score with no revision whatsoever. So I, I really hate, I really hate this exam. Um You'll find that most answer choices are vague. Um They're not clear cut with no clear right or wrong. And when you look at the rationale in the sort in these uh official resources which are again, limited when you look at the rationale, um even the rationale contradicts itself within and between past favors. So it's really uh it's, it's, it's, it's quite difficult to revise for uh one thing I can say is um that not many people, like it's quite controversial, but even worse when doing no revision is doing revision from unofficial resources as they will never be represented representative of the rear exam. So um don't do II I didn't want, I didn't want to do like ques question bangs from the uh sed question bangs from my past medical or, or you medical. I felt that courses covering the SGT and PDR. Um my opinion were absolute waste of time and money partly because they were use scenarios that are are not official or will basically go through the past papers all all over again. Uh And yeah, and I in the in the real time pressure exam, you don't have time to sort of debate and think too hard about the answers. Um when compared to scrutinizing scenarios in a non exam setting. So the pressure really uh the the pressure pressure is there. I would also not advocate discussion groups for professional Dyna as the people who are you arising with probably don't know any more than you do either. Um I, I do, I, I do uh admit the um if for example, English is not your first language, uh it, it can be, it's worthwhile to sort of familiar, familiarize yourself with the style and substance of professional dynamic sna but don't get too, too hung up on it. Uh And, and uh next uh next slide. So the generic advice I, I used to, um the generic advice I used for these professional dynamics. Um Again, it's so subjective and didn't really apply it. It's not really tangible. It's like you have to answer questions like you have to answer the snow is like like a martyr. Uh Even there's, there's one that had, um, you, you would have to sort out the sort out the rotate on your, on your annual leaf. Yeah. And uh patient safety should always be the number one priority. You should know your responsibilities and, and limitations. As an fit doctor, the answers that involve exploring, seeking and uh in involve exploring and seeking information. Right? Harley Harley in general, you should take responsibility when witnessing wrong practices and you should, er, raise concerns with the person involved. And uh yeah, handovers should be ideally done in person and direct with direct communication and communicating to the patient directly is generally preferred and relatives and you should involve seniors of course, as, as appropriate. So that, that's some generic advice is probably not going to be too useful because, uh you can't apply it to every single scenario and each scenario is contextually different. So it's funny. Uh, but that, that's what the generic advice. Um, most, most people use and I and I sort of use but didn't really help me. Uh Yeah. And uh the next slide. So there, there's some uh just important logical considerations that will sort of make, um, the MS R A process quite easier. You should book the test center uh early, the invitations typically will occur in mid December. Uh You should know that there's only a, only a finite number of slots. So if you, if you book late, you may have to go, like you have to travel quite far to, to the test center. You should, you should also look at the reviews of the test center beforehand on online, on Google reviews, er, because it's peers in review, some, some individual a can be a bit clumpy and they, they, they, they can be a bit more, more strict. Um and you should plan leave and swabs well in advance. Uh, in my case, I took nine days of leave, I probably would have not scored high without uh this. And also the last thing you want to be doing is like MS O A art on calls or nights. Uh You should familiarize yourself with a peers view interface as well. Um So I, I use Reddit quite a lot um but it would be advisable not to trawl reddit in the exam period. There's quite a lot of scaremongering posts of MS A which put people off as well. And as I said, you should take the optional five minute break in after the, the, the first uh professional dynamic section uh like if you're applying to multiple specialities such as like GB or uh A CCS, um you, you may get your results faster. Uh You, you may get your MS R A results faster. And uh this is beneficial as you obviously can start interview prep earlier if you, if you know you got a decent score. I I know some people who actually applied uh for GP just to get the MS R A score earlier and then they review the application for GP and positioned with radiology and the, the final slide. Next one. So my main takeaway is uh I know that I cover this quite fast is it's a high stakes exam. Uh but focus more on clinical problem solving, which is more objective uh than the more subjective uh professional Dinas. You should start with vision earlier. Uh uh You should start with vision early ie now, if you haven't, you should use question banks and supplement them with notes and you should also get leave to make your life easier. So, yeah. Uh that's uh my talk. Thanks very much for listening. And if you have any questions, uh you can either put them in the chat or we can answer them later. Thank you so much. Thanks. Uh That was an elaborate uh talk about how to crack the adversary exam. And uh I would really listen to him because he did score really high. And I can see as all you can see is that the amount of materials and amount of options that he have explored before going to the exam was really, really, really quite good. And uh I think that made him stand out as well. So that would be it. Thanks for the good piece of advice to uh a Bera Do you wanna say anything? Yeah, thank you to. That was really a great presentation. Um So I know you have stressed a lot on the um the clinical part. Um But I know as an international graduate, I really struggled with the professional dilemma questions and lots of people keep asking. Um So, um I just wanted to ask you guys like others, Amine Jaran. And did you find any other resources helpful? Because I know he said that he cracked it in four days and because he did over prep, but some people feel they're not really good at it. So any resources that you guys found really helpful, um like any good medical practice from D MC or any books, I think the most useful thing for me was using the UK FP OS JT post papers. So this is the official foundation program in the UK who wrote the write the exams themselves. They have, I think two or three full length mock exams with explanations for each question. So there's well over 100 and 50 questions to go through. So you can derive the logic quite well from, from them. So that for me, to be honest was the only resource I used for the professional dilemma section. As opposed to generic question banks and external resources. I think it's uh same here cause I was an international medical graduate. And uh the expectation of the professional dilema is that you'll be an exceptionally well doctor, which at some point is not practical enough. Uh So when I gave the exam, first, some scenarios which come up that I don't think it happens in the real world, but that is expected of you from GMC. So I would stay a bit different because uh I've often heard people say that you don't have to go into a lot of materials, but stick with the basic, stick with the generic ones. Uh like the ones like the GMC guidelines. That's the final thing. But what I did was that for my second exam was I did go through a lot of materials which help my brain fine tune and pick certain subtle variations of the question which uh help me at the, at the exam today. As as to mentioned, this is a split second decision. You have very less time with a lot of questions to cover. So I just going through a lot of materials helped me personally. But I think people need to figure out what kind of learner they are do they want to stick with one of your materials and learn the basics or do they want to fine tune their brain to a lot of scenarios? And when they find a scenario or something similar, they can probably increase the probability of marking the right question in the right order. Ok. Thank you, Oxford ST someone is asking, would you recommend uh I think it was a good book. I studied it. So, um you were asking what is a good score? Um I think Amin has answered, I think because the uh person is quite going high so at least try to focus, get at least 5 40 plus um like make a mark past medicine or pass me. They are both the same. Um Someone is asking can I book exam in Pakistan? Do you know overseas exams? I think there is a center but it is quite, the slots are quite limited. So if you're booking um of like not in the UK, then you have to be quite quick in booking the slot. Otherwise you might not get it. I think we are answering questions. Um I think as the way as per the schedule, can we just move on to the next one? Ok. Yeah, thank you. Uh Yes. Uh guys, we will be answering the questions. We will have a look into the chat box as well. And also there will be a final QN A session. So keep your questions. So we're moving on to the next important part, which is uh the radiology portfolios. This is one thing which you have to start quite early. Uh Some people take years to get this to make sure you, you stand a good chance out there. Uh So we have Amin, uh he would be uh speaking about the portfolios and he would be personalizing it and might bring in few tips and tricks what he did to achieve this thing. So, I mean, OK, uh good morning everyone. So my name is Amin. I'm a ST one trainee at South and University Hospital in, based in South Essex. And um I'll be going through the portfolio section. So the portfolios in radiology traditionally were quite er thin, there wasn't much to it. Um you could theoretically wake up one day and decide one week for deadline that I can, I'll apply for radiology if you get a decent MS R A score. Um because the there was only five domains, there was 10 marks maximum to get and each of the domains were extremely generic. Just you just need to get an audit, you just need to do a taste a week, you just need to do um some, it, it, there are things that you may naturally accrue throughout your foundation doctor training or even medical school studies. Um And then what happened in 2023 applications. So this time, last year or just a bit closer to December the health education England released a new portfolio requirement, a sort of a new benchmark. And essentially, this completely changed the way portfolios work. It made the domains from 5 to 7. Um and it also increased the amount of marks available um from 10 to 45. And so there was a lot more detail in the portfolio and a lot more things were required. Now, obviously, the biggest reason why this probably happened was because the er surgical applications for CST now require MS R A as a requirement. Um So you need to get a certain MS R A score that counts towards your CST applications. And what a lot of people do on the oral platform is they tend to apply for multiple things at the same time. So if you have um a decent MS R A score, somebody could apply for radiology, CST GPA CCS anesthetics everything. And as a result, what you get is an inflated number of people applying for radiology and no way to tell between who is serious and who isn't. So the theory is is that the the portfolio was made a bit more stringent and, and tight so that it weeds out the people who are not as serious about radiology and make it a bit more fair. Er The portfolio as mentioned earlier is 30% of the overall mark and er MS R A being 40 the interview section being 30% and er the portfolios are something that you need to start from quite early. Um You cannot acc accrue everything in time for the applications and because everything that you er build in your portfolio has to be completed by the time the applications close, um the domains are as followed. So I'm going to go through each of them one by one with a screenshot of the actual 2023 specification and talk about how best to accumulate it. So the first section is commitment to specialty. So this section is marked out of 10, er it is the largest section in the portfolio section. Er So 10 out of 45 marks er is commitment. And how do you show commitment to specialty? The typical, the best way or the most common way that everyone knows is via a taste a week and it needs to be a significant exposure as well. So what is the definition of a significant exposure? It is something that is three days or more. Um I'll try and answer them towards the end of the questions towards the end, but a good portfolio score would be around 30 plus if, if you want to differentiate yourself from other applicants. Uh So significant exposure is three days minimum er consecutively and er the types of exposures are taste a weeks. Um and there is a difference, a taste a week in AD GH and a taste of a week in the tertiary center are two different exposures altogether. Because in one area, you're looking at a general radiology department, in another area, you're looking at a subspecialty sort of section of radiology. So uh those are two separate ones, some people do SSE modules. Um So in the UK medical training or in medical schools, they have a student selected component which is sort of like a module in the university. And if you pick a radiology focused one that will count as a exposure. And another 1 may be some people do clinical lab projects which involve spending time in a radiology department that could be nuclear medicine, that could be in a pet center, that could be MRI it could be any sort of project which is radiology focused and that is also a separate exposure. And some people even do um Interco er BS CS in imaging sciences, which is quite a, a popular BS C when I was in medical school at King's College, London. Um and that can also be a, a different exposure. So you need at least er two different exposures. Uh that would be multiple, two is minimum, different exposures for three plus days that will give you the 10 marks. And what you would do is you would develop a certificate at the end of your time or you get a letter of recommendation um from the department head, the consultant, whoever is in charge as your evidence. The next one is leadership and management So this is a Newish section that they added. And in this section essentially, it goes from 0 to 7 where it, it's about leadership in a generic sense and to the highest level is leadership regarding radiology at a higher level. So in the lower ranked marks, you can see if you're part of any society of any kind, it could be a student society at university, it could be a generic society outside of university, your local clubs or whatever. And if it's local slash regional, er, then that will qualify you for the two or three out of seven sort of grade on the right of the column, you can see examples and the examples are actually quite good. Um It tells you pretty much the sort of things that they're looking at. Um now obviously to qualify for the higher marks, what you need to do is you need to make your leadership and management geared towards radiology um because they want to see that you're interested in studying radiology. So for example, um a good example would be being part of a radiology society at university. That would be immediately if you look at the section er at five out of seven hold or have held a local regional leadership level or managerial level involving radiology. So that would be an undergraduate radiology society. Um that would probably be the easiest way of doing it if your universe. Sorry, if your hospital, wherever you work might have a sort of a research group or a group of, um, um, you know, fellow residents who are interested in applying for radiology. You could form a group out of it. You might have an overseeing consultant and that could be a form of involvement um, in radiology. For some people, they might be involved in health care from a, er, sort of a, er, non radiological point of view. They might be part of the Royal Society of Medicine or a part of a surgical society. That's something that you might have thought about doing before you made the switch to radiology. And if you were involved with that at a national level, um, a bit more than regional, that can also be worth quite a lot of marks. So, the idea is how do you define again your level of involvement, whether it's regional or sorry, whether it's managerial or not, that would be up to the person who's giving you the certificate or the commendation. So, whether it's a human resources department or a consultant, they will obviously detail in their letter or in their commendation. What level of involvement you had? Did you, did you organize, er, people, did you, were you part of recruitment? Did you organize events for the society, that sort of thing? So, that's leadership and management. And then the next um, part, actually I'll answer the question that I asked, does working in the radiology department overseas? Many years ago, count as radiology exposure. Um So if you were the, when you say many years ago, this is one thing I didn't actually mention in a slideshow point is that your experience is up to the er this is according to 2023 it might change this year. But this is going off the latest guidance experiences of up to prior to 10 years from the day that you're applying count. So if you've done something within the last 10 years, that is relevant to the portfolio and you can develop evidence for it and submit that evidence that will count basically. So it doesn't have to be in the last one or two years essentially. OK. So the next section is teaching and training. So this is regarding now, this section is not about simply teaching, it's not simply just teaching. Like I did a presentation about ECGS to some medical students to hit the higher marks. It's about organizing teaching and being involved in a teaching program. So a very common um sort of a thing that students, sorry, medical doctors might get involved in is a local teaching program for foundation doctors. So in the UK, most hospitals have an education center and the education center always hires or elects one or two representatives who will organize a teaching program for fy one fy two or medical students that are attached to a hospital being involved in something like that is being involved in a teaching program and that will get you good points. So going through the sections, if you're involved in absolutely nothing and you've not even taught anybody er, or have evidence of teaching that won't be, obviously there will be zero points, evidence of providing organized teaching or training. So ie you did some kind of teaching will only be two out of five. And then if you made a major contribution, and again, major contribution is going to be defined by the person who is giving you the evidence um which is the certificates and the, and the letters that they might write for you. Um Major contribution to a local or regional teaching program that will give you four out of five points, which is a good return. And then the highest level is national or international teaching program, which might be a lecture series that you do online, which is attended by people around the country or around the world, for example. And you were involved in organizing it, which may be recruiting teachers, setting up the online platform um chasing people for feedback, providing certificates, some form of er contribution that you've made, which is um distinct and, and, and notable and the teaching events that you're running have to span for at least three months. So it cannot be a solitary loan event. Can't just be a one off um teaching event that you got involved in. It has to be something that has it's has some level of um consecutive and the first and the last teaching session should be a minimum of three months between each other to show that there is a significant amount of involvement essentially. Um And I would recommend that the letter, whatever letter of accommodation you get mentions these date ranges so that it's unambiguous when you're submitting evidence. Now, the next one is a formal teacher qualification. So this can be a bit trickier to get. Um So if you're one of those people who will once upon a time, a teacher back in the day, and you've chosen to change your career path towards medicine and, and back in the day, you got a medical, a master's in medical education or a PG CE or something like that, then you will qualify for Max Mars five out of five. The reality is most people don't have that. Um So they might have a PG cert or a PG diploma in teaching. And um for example, people who do the academic foundation program in the UK, um which is F one F two, but your F two year is usually split between education. They usually award you a PG certification alongside it. And that would give you four out of five marks in this section. But the reality is not everybody is an A FP candidate and not everybody has a masters in medical education. So in my position, I didn't, I couldn't get either of the two top marks. Um I had to figure out how to get at least two out of five. so evidence of another training or teaching method. So they give an example of an online course you can do called trainer trainer. Um, and this is a link that I've put on it and I'm going to post it right here on the chat function. So this is an online course that you can do in your own time. Um where you can basically go through the course. It's a generic course about how you train people and how do you teach somebody to be a teacher to others. It's um probably information that a lot of us know but formalized and you get a certificate at the end which you can submit to get points for and you will qualify for the two out of five. At least some people might want to do a PG cert that's completely up to you. But PG cert requires time effort, money as well. Um I think in the UK A PG cert costs about 2 to 3000 lbs if you want to do it on your own. And is it really worth it for two points in a portfolio? Probably not if that's the only reason. So doing that would be quite good. Um On the link, it might say that you should pay for it or that it costs a lot of money. But if you have an NHS login because you work in the NHS, then you, there's a way to access the teaching course for free actually. So don't rush to paying for something like this because it, it might cost a bit of money as well. So the certificate a auto produces is evidence enough as well. Uh, the next section I will just speed up slightly, er, is audit and quality improvement. So, um, audits are essentially, um, a way. So to qualify for the max points, you need to get involved in multiple um audits, er, multiple audits being two or more and the audit has to be related to radiology and the audit has to show that there's an improvement between the first cycle and the second cycle. So each audit has to have two cycles. So audit one, you do one cycle, you do a second cycle, you present it and then you do um a second audit, first cycle, second cycle, you present it and between the cycles you have your intervention. Um The, if you're struggling for ideas of how to what audit you should do, what is available, how do I develop a methodology or? So on? The RCR has a audit template section where it literally gives you an example of how to develop an audit about this topic. And there are many audits that you can pick from. Er, so I'm going to drop another link on the chat which er, you can save and this you can use it as inspiration to develop your own audit for your own place. And if you were to present at a local audit meeting within your hospital and get a certificate for it, that would count. Um But on top of having a certificate for presenting the audit, you also need to have a letter of COMD information. I would recommend getting from a consultant or audit lead at your hospital to show that you were a lead in that audit. So, what does a lead mean? What's a lead role in, in an audit? Uh It is presenting the ad, it's being the person who generates the idea and develops methodology or it's somebody who does a lot of the data collection. These are all lead roles. So, so what I would say is pick a couple of audits on that template list, er, apply it to your hospital, do a first cycle, a second cycle present both of these audits at your local hospital and then, er, try and get a, er, certificate for the audit and also a um, commendation from, er, the audit lead to say that you were heavily involved in this and that will help. But there has to be a second cycle. You can't do a first cycle and present it because you haven't shown an improvement. There should be an improvement, er, what the improvement is, um, is it can be a 1% improvement. It doesn't really matter but there just has to be a start and end um moving on quickly academic achievements. So again, this is quite robust. Um The academic achievement section is about presentations and publications. Um if you have a post doctorate phd or an MD in research or um and er then that will give you the max marks, but the reality is most people won't have that. And then if you have a publication related to Radiology as a first author, that will get you the next highest level of mark, the best way to get that is by publishing case reports. And the European Society of Radiology is a good place er, to attempt publishing radiology based case reports because they have a fairly good turnover. They respond to you fairly quickly. If you publish something, of course, there is an academic rigor to it, they won't just accept anything but there will be a good vetting process and they don't take months to get back to you. Um So if you get something um presented there that will give you four out of five. If you go one lower three out of five is what I got for the section because I had a publication that I presented during medical school and that I had published which was not radiology related, but I was the first author. Um So that is um that is what I had. Um And for me, I didn't push too hard to go to er the four out of five section because I didn't feel like it was worth the effort. I would have rather have put my more time into revising for the exam. Um rather than pushing to possibly get rejected for a case report and then get accepted or get rejected and then be in this middle ground. So if you have a publication which is non radiography required, non radiological related, you have to be first author, it cannot be a non radiological publication where you are second or third or fourth author, you have to be first author. Another way around it is if you presented a um a poster of some kind. Er, so if you presented a poster er, related to radiology, er, at a national or international level as the first author, you might, you, you can get three out of five or if you presented a generic poster of any kind, surgical, medical, whatever that will give you two out of five and then one out of five, I think, you know, if you're serious about radiology, you should try and aim as high as you can. Er, one out of five isn't worth discussing too much the evidence, er, for a publication, er, doc er, publication can be the actual publication itself um on the website, the link of where the publication was posted, um or if it's a conference um that you presented at, then a certificate of presentation at the conference as well. Uh, the full publication document doesn't have to be, do I, or pub me? It doesn't matter. You just, um, doesn't have to be pub, it just has to have ad oy, er, or to be fair. It just needs to be on a journal of some kind. It's not, it's not that strict. Er, the next section. Um, or the last one actually is prizes and awards. So, er, this one can be a bit tricky because there's a big discrepancy between the second and the first ranking co six marks and three marks can feel like a bit of a drop. So to qualify for the six out of six, you either have to have a distinction in your medical school studies. Um, this can be either for your written exams, your OSI, it doesn't have to be for both or you have a presentation, a prize awarded from a national International Radiology related conference. Er, now the prize can be something like the best poster or best oral presentation or top 20 posters of the conference, something like that. Um, if you don't have something radiology related, er, then we go down from 6 to 3 where at that point it can be non radiological related. So, um it can be a local presentation where it was ranked as really good, you know, er, or you might have received some sort of prize money or a physical gift or something, something that shows that you were exclusive and you were picked out as one of the best of a bunch. Um, it could be best fy, one of the year, best F I two of the year, that sort of thing. Um, that would be a prize at a local level and then more than one prize at a local level and then a regional prize, er, could be like a regional audit, meaning that your audit was regarded to be the best at a regional level. Er, if you got distinction in year three and year four, with this count, er, unfortunately not because it says the final year of your primary medical degree. Er, so it has to be a overall distinction. Um The, or if you, you know, it's a bit annoying because you could be, you could get distinctions from year 1 to 4, but because you didn't get it in year five, that doesn't count. So, unfortunately, it has to be in the final year now. Good um, good conferences that you can aim for is Bir um that is one, a radiology residence forum is a, a newly established radiology group that has, that is based in Essex, that you could do a yearly conference now that you can try to submit to and it's an international conference as well, online, international. Er, ESR do a annual conference that you can try and publish to and RSN A as well, do a annual conference that you can try and present something to as well. So those are good international conferences to aim for, for medical student uh slash end of medical school, er sorry, er medical doctor slash end of medical school level. And as mentioned, regional is deanery local is just the university or the local hospital. So just some generic tips because I have overrun a bit. Um You need to start early, definitely start early because as I've mentioned, um oh yes, one thing I completely forgot to mention is that the leadership and management section, the a, the, the place that you're involved in the, the management s that you're involved in the group that you're part of, you need to be a part of that group for at least six months. It has to be six months of minimum, er, by the time you're applying. So when I say, start early, I say start early because you need to be, you need to meet minimum quotas anyway, er, for the leadership and management section and for the, er, teaching development. Um, and at the same time, er, you know, you want to be able to get the time to do your publications to present things to chase the certificates and so on, that can be a bit of a laborious process. Uh Second thing is that it's quite easy to pre calculate your marks actually, if you know what you're aiming for and you can target those exact places. You can pretty much tell what you're gonna get. Um So you know if you know, for example, OK, I've passed the MS ra I got an, ok, I score, I didn't get too high above the cut off. That means I need to try and get a really good portfolio score to offset my MS R A score. Um or for example, um I did really well in the MS R A, ok? Maybe it's not worth me doing too much work on the portfolio. I can concentrate more on my interview and do well in the interview. So you can play around with it if you get a good enough MS R A score that gives you access to worrying about these things basically. Um But it's, it's a bit of a game that you have to play. The next one is pick and choose or battles. So as you can see some of the thresholds between four out of five and five out of five or three and five out of five, some of them require a lot of work just to get to the next level up if it's too much work and you can get those points somewhere else. I would do that instead, you know, you don't want to waste all your time trying to chase portfolio tick Boxx exercises and then, you know, um not do well in the exam and just absolutely don't get an offer at all to begin with. So you need to um er, pick your battles wisely. Er, again, as I mentioned, collect your evidence as soon as possible, start early and also when you do collect your evidence, your certificates and your letter of commendation, make sure you label them clearly and make sure you name the documents very clearly. Um, because when, when you are allowed to upload your evidence onto the online system, they're going to be looking at these documents and they're going to be looking at er, the names of the documents. And so you don't want to open up the opportunity for them to make a mistake and misinterpret what you've uploaded and therefore not give you the points that are right for the rules. So you need to eliminate all the chances of, of external mistakes happening, but inevitably mistakes will happen. And so the last section, the last point is don't be afraid to appeal. So this is further down the line. For example, I uh my portfolio score was 38 out of 45 and I predicted that I would be able to get 38. However, when I got my initial um marks ratified marks, I was given 33 out of 30 45. So you see, I was cut off by five marks quite a lot in the grand scheme of things. Um And there was um there was clear mistakes in the way they interpreted some of my evidence because they give you a small document explaining um why they gave you certain marks or certain sections. So all I did was appeal. I explained that, you know, maybe there was a human error in the explanation of a human error in the interpretation of my evidence. And so I think you should look into this, what I said meant this, not that and so on and so forth. So you have to appeal it. If you get given a certain mark, don't just take up on value, appeal it and y you'll get those points back and that's what I did. I appealed it and I went from 33 back up to 38. And er, and without those points, I probably wouldn't have gotten into my deary of choice. So those are the main things. Um Hopefully that was all clear, feel free to er add more questions on and I will obviously er answer as the other speakers go along. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, uh indeed, that was quite elaborate. So guys, what I have to say is that for people do who are looking into it first, don't get overwhelmed. All of us have been there, we have done it, which means it can be made possible. So make sure you know what you have, take a piece of paper, write it down, go through the sections, what you have just mentioned and make some plans which is practical and time bound, which can be achieved and you can get high schools, you can get low scores but try as much as possible. So without further uh delaying, I'm just uh inviting our next two speakers who have been enthusiastically answering all the questions. So, uh Jean and a fan over to you. So this is the next session which is interview, which is also counted 30%. Uh So Jane and a fan. Hi, everyone. Um So my name is Aan. I'm one of the ST ones working in Tens Valley based in Oxford University Hospitals. And I'm J I'm also one of the SD ones working in Oxford University Hospitals. Um, so we're both going to talk about interviews today. Um, what we wanted to start off in mentioning is that both of our journeys and both of our approaches to interviews was very different. Um, so I came straight through from F two and luckily for me and my hardware paid off and I managed to get my, um, first choice Dean the first time round. Er, Jenas slightly different um, journey, which was maybe helpful for you to hear. Um, yeah, so I actually did two years of surgery before and then a year of psychiatry where I didn't get into radiology first time and I reapplied and I got in this time. So I think my interview this year was made really much better based off my experience last year. Ok. Um, so we're going to first start on talking about just the interview format in general. Um, keep in mind this is the interview format as it was in 2023. So, so the year that we applied it may change slightly. So I would keep an eye out for that, but it's most likely going to be an online interview. Initially. You'll have an ID checking station where there's a non radiologist who will just look at your ID, make sure you're the correct person and then you'll be moved on to the interview with two panelists who will be radiologists. And that's when your interview timing will begin, that other person will still be there mainly for timekeeping and they'll, they'll be keeping their camera off. Can you get to the next side, please? Um So in terms of the actual interview, it's a 15 minute interview and you won't be allowed to go past that 15 minutes. And in that 15 minutes, they're going to be asking you questions on four different domains that I've put in this table here, the different domains are have different amount of time allocated to them and nominally and different amount of points in terms of the time allocated to different domains. Some interviewers may be very strict with this time. My interviewers were not, they allowed to go slightly over each individual domain because they had some follow up questions. But again, when it came for 15 minutes, I was cut off in terms of the scoring, I've put this um points for the different domains there. Each of the two interviewers will score you independently giving you a total score out of um 30 at the end of the interview. If you have taken less than 15 minutes and up to a maximum of one minute, if you'll be able to just add in any support in additional information. So if you weren't able to talk about it in a specific question or a specific domain, then this is your chance to just put, put in that last little bit of information that you really wanted to show off. I took a little bit longer on some of my questions. So I didn't get this time. So it's, but I still managed to get a very good interview score. So if you weren't able to have say something in this last minute, it's really not the end of the world. If you still had a good interview before, all, all of this, can we go to the next slide? So general tips. So I'd say the most important things are is to really prepare. So for questions, one and four, these are the two minute questions and they're looking mostly at why radiology and your skills and attributes and these are really easily to prepare for two minutes is a very short amount of time, especially if you're under pressure talking to consultants. So this is something you should be really prepared for to the point for questions two and three, they normally ask about softer skills such as coping and the pressure, uncertainty, communication, reflection. And therefore you want to prepare ideas, ideas and stories that you have gone through where you can talk about these skills. So that when it comes to the actual interview, they ask you about the time you had to be organized, you come up with your scenario and then you can talk about you being organized. Again, I say the most important thing is practice with anyone. Don't just practice with your friends because with I practice with consultants in my hospital and there was a, there was an element of pressure and unfamiliarity and this is something that you have to get used to for the interview as well. Presentation. This is, this is something to think of a bit later. But where you carry out your interview, the lighting, um make sure you have a camera, etcetera. And remember you're applying for an ST one level job. So if you are perhaps more experienced, more senior than other F twos here, your answers based off the questions they give you are what they would expect you should do at an ST one level, not necessarily ST three or ST five next slide, please. Sorry, what I'd want to also add to that is that when we say prepared, we don't mean have a script. They can tell when you have a script and what we'd recommend is have bullet points, have ideas that you want to talk about this way, you come off a lot more genuinely and it's not robotic. And it also means that if they ask a question that has a slightly different SCU that doesn't match the script that you may have prepared, you can still answer in a very organic way. Um But now let's move on to that talking about the actual um questions. So the first question is about the commitment to specialty, as we said before, this is essentially why radiology. So even though a different part of the score scoring for your um ranking is portfolio station, the consultants who are interviewing, you have no idea about this. So I thought of this as my portfolio station and I used it to really sell myself. I use the self assessment and the person specifications, a guide of what to include, but they're interviewing you, they want to get to know you as a person. So you want to make it personal to yourself, don't and based off your previous experiences um because a big part of this is they want to find out, not only are you someone who would do well in radiology, but they want to find they want to see, are you someone that they would be happy to work with? So some suggestions that we had is exposure to radiology, any publications and presentations, prizes and teaching. And again, make sure this is really well structured the way that I did this personally was that I had about five things I wanted to talk to talk about myself. Um my research, my publications, my exposures to radiology and teaching and one more thing I can't quite remember. But the way I did this was that I um structured this. So I had the things that I had the highest priority for first. And I used those in the, the first three in the first question And then what I wasn't able to talk about, I used in the last question. And again, because I had these bullet points regardless of how they asked me the question, I was able to talk very comfortably in a way that answered that question and felt very natural to both them. And we can we go to the next slide. So this is the second question and this is the five minute question. So the one they asked last year was about co coping with pressure and uncertainty. And the way I like to do it is you give an example of when you had to cope with such pressure and and uncertainty, you talk about what you did, how you did it, how you escalated and the outcome. And then you describe what you learned from this scenario, what skills you learnt, for example, being better communicating, being better at planning, being better organizing. And then you can then use those skills to talk about how that would make you a better radiologist. And I say that the thing that makes you stand out compared to other candidates is linking everything back into radiology. So for example, if they asked to give you a scenario with coping and the pressure you can talk about when you had to, you had a busy on call, you had to manage a busy on call list and all the jobs and then reflects back on your time when you're shadowing the duty, your radiologist in your taste a week and how those skills are relevant. And I think that way you show the examiners that you really understand what a job in radiology is like as before, make sure you prepare two or three examples because coping with pressure uncertain is what we had last year, but it may not be what you have. They might ask other skills like organization or empathy or communication where you want to be able to give the scenario and just adapt it slightly so that you can talk about the skills that they are asking for specifically next slide. OK. So team involvement is also another five minute question and this one typically talks about something ethical and knowledge of systems. So these typically are supervision, radiation safety, patient safety, they may relate to radiology or they may just be something quite general like patient safety. I think for this question, I approached it by having a structure as well. So I divided the answer to three groups. So for example, if the scenario was that you were the SD one and the radiographers come up to you saying a patient has been scanned incorrectly, they had the wrong scan. So there are three groups here to look for er, yourself, what you would do, your colleague who is in the radiographer, what you should do to support them and the patient, what you should do to support the patient. So the spy structure really helped me here and I won't go into spy as something that you can look into your own time. But making sure you address all three groups, make sure you answer, answer the question holistically and comprehensively. And again, you want to reflect this back to something that you've seen in radiology. So for example, with the patient being scanned incorrectly, you can talk about patient safety, you can talk about supporting your colleague, but you can also talk about using a realm meetings in your taste of the week and how you would refer this on to a realm meeting so you could discuss it in the future so that you can prevent this from happening again. Um So I I'd say look at the person's specification of 2024 probity is a new thing that's been added on there. And if, if the scenario is your colleague comes in drunk or, or you see him lying about something and then you could tie what you've learned from the scenario regarding the probity to what they're looking for in a person's justification, then therefore give a better answer. Next slide, please. You're on, sorry about that. So the last formal question that we'll ask you is about attributes and skills and the way that I interpreted this is that is them asking, what do you bring to the table? So with this, I wanted to include both practical skills and soft skills. So not just that you've done lots of research, but things about how you'd work well in a team and how you'd be able to move into a new environment, adapt to that and work with the people there. Um And talk about how that would make you a better radiologist. An important part for this is don't just make statements, use examples. All of us are hardworking, all of us are dedicated and all of us can say that if you are able to use examples that will really flesh out what you're trying to say. As I mentioned before, my approach was that whatever I wasn't able to fit in, out of those five or so points I wanted to make about myself, I put in here and again, I mean, I, I made sure this was really well structured. So if they asked me a follow up question, that took away one of those points that was leaving till the end, I still had those bullet points to be able to go, go through and talk about something else instead. And again, it just came across very organic rather than a robotic script. And they were able to build that report, we were able to build the rapport even though it was only a 15 minute interview. And I believe that that was part of what gave me a higher score. Can you go to the next slide? Um So the final minute, so this one really depends on your interview. So my interviewers are quite strict with time. So I had this final minute, but your interview of this might not be so strict with the time and you may, you may not have this minute in the end, in the end. But in general, I would suggest that you elaborate on further something that you've already mentioned. So if you've talked about your publications or audits in the first question, and you didn't mention that you presented it nationally, then this is something to raise here. Additionally, if you have something really impressive on your CV, like you've done some national teaching or you have a PT diploma and medical education, but it's not previously come up. Then this is the time to talk about it as well. I would also say, do not ask any questions at this point. Anecdotally, I know someone who asked uh asked the interviewers what they thought of academy versus traditional schemes. And the interviewer just said that this is something that you should know yourself. So I'd say to be safe. Just don't ask any questions. As I mentioned, I didn't have this final minute because the rest of my interview took a little bit longer. So the thing I wasn't able to talk about was my teaching. So the entire part of the person specification and the portfolio that I wasn't able to talk about. However, because I was able to prioritize the points that I want, I want to talk about and used um went in order for what I found more important. Um I was able to make sure that the more important things are put on there. And after the interview, I felt more at ease that what was based personally off of me, this less important thing was missed out rather than something mo more major. Could we go to the next slide? So we thought we talk about some comic topics to revise that we think could come up. Um Some of this is radiology based because um even though you're not expected to have a lot of knowledge about radiology at this point and to day to day workings, it's very fair for them to expect you to have done some research and have some basic knowledge about radiation protection and safety. The rest of this are things that would be that you could expect any F two to know about and be able to talk about. So not only radiation protection and safety, but um as we mentioned before, um escalations of concerns or incidents, a colleague who may be acting unprofessional and also things like consent and capacity. So make sure that you're covering a wide range of these things in the types in the um things that you're brushing up on next slide, please. Um And we just want to end with some helpful tips and resources. So practice, practice, practice is probably the most important thing that we can say. Um Obviously, most of this practice is likely to happen in person with your colleagues and your friends that you see that you see in real life. However, because your interview is online, make sure you practice online. So I was literally on other opposite ends of my living room doing an interview with my flatmate last year and the interface of using computer is very different to real life. So it's really helpful to do that you may get different um advice regarding whether you should look directly into the camera or whether you should look at your screen and people will disagree on this. I personally look directly at the screen because then for me seeing the faces of the interview has made me connect with them more and felt more like a conversation. However, other people would say, and this is very valid that if you look at the screen for the interview is they feel that you're speaking directly to them. In terms of practice, practicing interviews, there are practice interview sessions as as I mentioned in the beginning, UK RST holds practice interview sessions and this is something that I did as um a candidate last year. Um You may also be able to go to your local radiology departments like G AN did and try to get some consultants and radiologist to help you there. And there are other resources like med cast. What I want to say is that if you're unable to, because of time or cost, if you're unable to go to these practice interview sessions, then that is not going to, that shouldn't make you feel like you're going to do much worse than other people. The difference that I that they made for me was that I was able to prioritize different things and I had more practice and was able to be a bit more reassured. It was not a night and day difference before and after this practice interview session. But it was helpful for me personally, helpful books that we could recommend would be the two that I've got here. So the one with the scar on the radiology interview book has some of those radiology specific things. And that helped me get a brief understanding of some of the things that they may have asked about. The other one, medical interviews. This goes into a bit more details and has a lot more of the generic, common questions that may not be radiology related and also goes into detail about the stars and spy structures and other things like that. However, you can also do this from a Google search. And again, there are other books that may be also very helpful. Um And sometimes you may not even need to use these books but and use different resources that you can find online. But these are what helped the two of us. Um So I think that's all that we have for our session. Thanks for listening. Good luck for everybody. I hope that the next sessions will also be very helpful and we'll answer any questions when we have the time. Yes. Thank you for. Uh we had our two speakers who gave their interview experience and give their tips, guys in simple terms, just put yourself in the interview shoes and think what you would want to expect from a candidate. Do you want to listen to a set of memorized uh words and sentences or do you want to listen to something natural which comes out of them? So focus on that, read the person's specification and then try to personalize it. There must be something which you can relate to in your day to day living. It might be in your personal life, it might be in your, in your medical life. So that would really help you to stand out. So that being said, uh anyone of you guys who want to hone your skills in academic as well as clinical radiology, we have our next speaker who is an academic clinical fellow. So without wasting much uh further time, I'm inviting Tom Sarah uh Tom over to you. Hey, thanks. Good. Yes. So my name is Tom. I'm an ST one, an academic clinical fellow at Cambridge. So I'm going to talk about AC F applications, radiology. So some of it will be from my experience. But recently I've met with a few of the AC F tutors, people who are doing the recruiting scoring applications and the interviews at ca and so a lot of what I'm talking is tips I've gotten from them. So hopefully that should help. There's a lot to cover. So I won't necessarily go into a lot of detail, but hopefully it will it still help. So just to quickly recap what an AC F is, so you it's the same as any other clinical radiology training program in the sense when you start, you'll be an ST one. However, 25% of your time will be protected for research or academia. Um So it's another opportunity to get a trainings post. These posts are kind of separate from the national National application. But this year, for example, I think there's only six or seven posts in the entire country. Um So I'll talk a bit through the application. But the first thing is to remember, don't neglect the clinical application if you are applying for an ECF because even if you are offered one, you still have to meet the minimum threshold for a point in the standard National Clinical application. So you still need to try and do well on the MS A into your portfolio. Um I would, if you don't, if, if you're applying this year, you should already know the applications came out in the beginning of October, but it's also worth checking Oriel regularly because for example, my post came out two weeks later because it was a local post and I nearly missed it. Um And if you're particularly interested in a certain training scheme, have a look on their websites and they can often give information about their AC F posts if they have any and it's a good place to go. Um Also make sure that wherever you do apply because when you apply for these, you are applying for a specific training scheme that you're happy with that training scheme from a clinical point of view, you might love the academic side, but you also have to be happy if it's an academy or not an academy that you're still going to be an ST one there and predominantly you will be clinical. So you have to really be happy with, with the location as well. Not just the fact that you want to do academic stuff. The most important thing is to read the N HR AC F guidance. So this is one of the most transparent applications and interview processes and scoring that you probably will ever have in any job. It tells you what they're scoring and how they're scoring, it tells you what they're going to ask you in interview and also the order they're going to ask you an interview so you can be well prepared for it. Next slide, please. So the first part is the A application and the short listing. So that opened in early October. And if you're applying this year, the applications deadline is the first of November. If they put on a bit later, the deadline may be a bit later, but that's the kind of the majority of them. It will be the first of November. So if you're not applying this year and you're thinking next year, you can still go on to a look and you can preview the applications to look at the questions they ask. And so they're generally their white space questions. So they er text for you to write and describe and explain things you've done. And it's all the kind of the typical things you'd expect talk about your research experience, audit, teaching and leadership, et cetera, similar stuff to the portfolio, but it allows you to kind of describe stuff. So the other thing to note is that posts, they are different types of posts. So most will be what's called a competition post. So that means that for that single ac F post will be, it will be a competition between radio, a radiologist and two other specialties. So for example, Cambridge may have an AC F post which only one person will be able to get. It could be a radiologist, it could be an oncologist or it could be a cardiologist, for example. And all those three specialties can apply for that same post. So there won't be one of each that gets it, only one of them. So you're not just competing against other people who want to do radiology, but also other specialties who want to do academic. There might also be local posts which will just be a local radiology ac F post. So there won't be a competition, it would just be within radiology and also some posts will have a theme, an N I hr research theme. So they often outline six or so priority themes that they want clinicians to do research in. So I'll explain later on why that's important to know. So for the shortlisting and for the application, it is the key thing is make it easy for them to score you. The guidance tells you how they're going to score you and what the criteria are. So try to make it as easy for them. So this isn't to scare you. But I know for example, my post, there were 100 and 80 applications for a single post and it's the same one and two people reading all these shortlisting applications and scoring them, they're gonna get probably quite tired of reading all these different applications. And so if you can tell them the first couple of lines, what they need to hear to give you the max score, then they'll thank you and it will make it easier for you as well. The next slide, please. So for example, hopefully you can see this on the left. This is these examples are some of the scoring criteria for the short listing. So on the left, but teaching, if let's say you don't have a higher education teaching qualification, but you do have a formal teaching role in that section. I would start with, I have, well, I had a formal teaching role in and then explain. So it really makes it obvious which score you should be getting or trying to get. Likewise. So the top one talking about prizes, if you've got free undergraduate prizes, start that section saying I have free undergraduate prizes as follows and then list them and then the bottom right, if you've had several presentations at international level, first line of that section, say I've had several presentations at international level and then go on to describe them. So they already know which section you were trying to get and they can go, yeah, that was several presentations, four points. So they have to read much more next slide, please. So the other thing is to read the appendix two and the guidance, it tells you all the central and desirable criteria and the specific job descriptions for each AC F post will also have these. So some of the marking criteria isn't as objective as some of those. I just, I just said, and it's a bit more subjective about how your experience comes across. So, but trying to hit these points will be really very useful. I, what I did was speak to AC F leads. So before I came here, I worked at UCL and I, I knew the radiologist who led the AC F applications there. There wasn't an application that year at UCL, but I was able to talk to him about what he looks for, share my application and he can give me feedback. So it doesn't even have to be a radiologist if you know anyone who's involved in the AC F applications where you are locally or you can find someone in a completely different specialty. The criteria are exactly the same a matter, the specialty, but the subjects might change. So get them to have a look at your applications, ask them for advice. That's what I I would say. And the other thing is to include your practical experiences and not just your achievements. Of course, it's important to list your publications and prizes and presentations. But what I would do is write all those kind of things down on a piece of paper or on a word document. But then within each one break down, what did you do to achieve that? So let's say you did a research project? What did I do to get that publication? Did I write any grant applications? Did I apply for ethics approval? Did I do the statistical analysis? Did I do? Was I consenting patients or producing patient information sheets? Did I run some kind of patient participate, involvement group, things like that? And if you can write those down later on, oh, it'll be very important. That's what's going to set you apart. They're the practical skills which is a they're agnostic to radiology that um will kind of no matter who's interviewing. Oh, that they've really engaged in the academic process and they understand how it works rather than just say I have this first off the publication. What did you do to get that publication next term slide, please? So once you've submitted your White Space questions and they've scored you, they set a cut off score for each post individually. So it changes, it's not a set cut off. They basically pick it. So they interview up to 56 people max per post. So um it's quite a lot of people wean down after the short listing to interview. Um So the interview will happen somewhere between November and January, it's different for each post. And if you apply to more than one post, you'll have an interview for each individual, one at, based at the local um local site. So it'll probably be virtual still. But the people in the in the room will be from the place that you're applying to. So who's there. So if it's a competition post, there will be a clinical academic from each of the three competition specialties. So there will be one clinical academic radiologist, but there will also be an oncologist and a cardiologist. For example, if that's the other two posts, there will be another likely clinical academic who's part of the general clinical academic team at the site. Again, they may not be radiologists and they're the four people that score you. So they all score you independently and their scores added up. So the chances are only one of the four people are going to be radiologists. So you've got to make sure that you can sell yourself to academics of all, all flavors, which is why I said the importance of those kind of radiology, agnostic skills, those kind of generic research skills that you've engaged with. There might also be a, there will be a layperson there who's won't score you, but it's to check that the interview process is fair and there may well also be an N hr representative to check that they're adhering to the standards and the guidance. So as I said, you can prepare your answers and you can prepare them fully because they're going to ask you the questions which are in the guidance and they're gonna ask you probably in that exact order. Um So you know what I'm going to ask you so you can repair. And I would, you should note what all the scoring for each of the questions is in the guidance and I'll talk through some of them, but note how each of the questions are weighted. They're not all, they haven't all got the same mark. Some of them are at 16, some are at eight and some are at five. So you may want to spend more time on some of them higher scoring answers and less on the others. And the reason I say to kind of keep in mind that and prepare your answers and have an idea of how long you want to spend is for these three reasons. So one is, don't expect them to have read your application. So the radiologist in the interview probably did read your application, but they may have forgotten most of it or it may have been a while ago. The others may not have seen any of it. So assume they know nothing about you. So even though you, you listed all your publications or achievements, you need to say them again, don't expect them to ask you follow up questions. So the guide, the advice I was told was if they have these questions, they need to get into it. It's not that much time. So if you, you the first question, you speak for a couple of minutes and you stop expecting them to maybe ask you a bit more about what you said, they may just go on to the next question. So that's just why I say kind of say what you want to say, everything you want to hit. Um But keep in mind the time and then don't expect them to interrupt you. So again, you might speak for 10 minutes on the first question. Uh and you got five more to, to go, but they're not necessarily going to say you should move on now. So look at all the questions, decide how long you want to speak on each of them and kind of practice that, you know, again, you don't want to be robotic and rehearsed, but I think it's better to be get, make sure you get everything you want to get across in a good time um because it is so standardized and, and in the way it is scored next terms. So the first two questions of the interview is about a data set, so, or publication. So the 24 hours before the interview, they will send you a generic data set or publication. It won't necessarily be radiology related. I got two figures. So this is one of the figures I got. Um and it could be about pretty much anything. So you have these 24 hours to try and prepare. So obviously have a look, think about, think about what you think of the figure. What does it show, er, what do you think it's trying to portray, discuss it with other people. So I showed it to some statisticians I worked with previously and I got their opinion about it. I said, what, what do you see from this? From this figure? Er I practice presenting it to them uh and seeing, you know, getting any feedback from them and likewise, you need to present it to a layperson as well. So someone who doesn't know anything about medicine very briefly, what does this graph show? And what is it trying to, to say you might be able to find the original data source, which you know, please do. But they know these are often public data sets or public figures, they will know if you ate and read the description or wherever it is on the website that it's held on. So it might be good to kind of jog you get you thinking about what the original source talks about for that figure, but try to have a bit of your own idea and own way, own way of phrasing it. So I'd recommend describing it and then interpreting it. So telling you what kind of graph it is, what's on the axis, what do the different colors or lines mean? For example, then say what does it actually show? What is the, what are the difference? Is it showing or trying to conclude? And then you might want to suggest a few reasons why that might be the case. So you might want to pick two or three things that the graph is, is trying to show that is the case next slide. So these are the two scoring systems for those first two questions. One on the left is ask, ask me to present it to a scientific audience and on the right on the right to a lay audience. So note how you get up to 16 for points for the scientific and then the eight for the person audience. So you might want to spend more time on the scientific explanation. And also note how it says briefly explained to a lay audience. So you don't need to spend too much time. There also look at how the point differences are different. So the difference between acceptable and good is four points or between good and exceptional is 10. So it really rewards someone who does very well on a question. Um So obviously try to do your best and other questions, but just to keep that in mind and this is all in the guidance. Each of these questions has positive and negative indicators. So it's telling you how to score well and these examiners are gonna have these in front of them. So they're gonna, if you start hitting some of these positive indicators, they're gonna go tick tick tick, really good. Um So some of them are a bit more objective than others. So uh just keep that in mind the next slide, please. So the next question is about your academic achievement. So this is again, more about objective things. You've done publications, prizes, et cetera. So look at the positive indicators. It just lists the kind of typical things that you might expect in a portfolio. So if I was you, I would just start talking about any of those I had in that exact order. So I would talk about if I had any additional degrees, I would talk about my publications, making sure to mention prizes presentations. If they're local, national international, what journals they were in and they should make it, make it easy for them to mark. So essentially go through that list and they can go, oh, they're hitting all these positive indicators. They can't, they can't not give you at least a good or a very good if you're hitting those positive indicators, max Lotion. So the next one often. So for me, they answered this question with the other previous question in one. So this is about your practical experience. This is what I spoke about earlier about breaking down what you did in order to achieve those publications, et cetera. So they really want to know what kind of things you know, did you apply for an FX approval? Did you run a PPP group, et cetera? Um because this will show that you know how academia and research works and that's very important for the application. So this is when I would mention that aspect. So you might want to take one of your maybe proudest achievements or your biggest research projects, et cetera and talk through chronologically how you, what you did in that project, how you started it, how you did the actual work, how you disseminated it and published it, et cetera. But yeah, doing that pre work of breaking down some of the key uh stuff that you did is really important. Next slide please, next one is about the actual post. So you should know a bit about the post and the location that you're applying to. So at a minimum, you should look at the website, look at who the local academic radiologists are. What kind of research they're doing? What kind of publications have they had recently? What specialties do they focus on? And then ideally if there's something of particular interest to you, you should make contact with them, you should uh you know, if you're interested in Neera and there's an academic, there's an email them or try to get into contact with someone, ask them what they are doing, what they're doing in the future. Say that you're applying for the AC F and you're wondering what kind of projects that A SI F might be involved with. You don't have to um commit to that. So let's say in an interview you talk about, oh, I'm really interested in this newer ra project that's going on in Cambridge, blah, blah, blah. If you get the job, you don't have to do your radiology, you can do something different. They're not gonna hold you to it, but you need to know what's going on. Um And at least express a kind of interest based on maybe your previous experience. Um Yeah, so I would always make contact if you can. Um And again, it's telling you these positive indicators and the next uh slide, please, the next question it asks you to talk about another area of academic medicine, clinical basic research, which is not to do with radiology or your interests. So if you've done a lot of previous work in neurology, for example, um don't pick papers about neurology, don't pick a paper about neuros surgery. Don't pick a paper about radiology, pick something different. So look at the major journals, Nature et cetera in the past six months or so. Uh see something that might interest you. And the, the key thing is finding something that you can link back to radiology, which might not seem obviously a radiology issue or research question, but think how it might impact radiology or how you might be able to use those that research within radiology. So my example for you is there's a lot of work in multi cancer detection, blood tests in circulating DNA for early screening of cancers. And so I spoke about that there's a big trial going on in the UK and how the if this was proven to be effective the impact that will have on imaging and radiology. Because if you're going to have a positive screening test for one cancer, two cancers or, or even a mysterious cancer, sometimes, then the next test is most likely going to be an imaging test. So if we're gonna screen the whole population for multiple cancers, you can imagine what it's going to do to imaging referrals. So that's just one example I used. Uh so if you can look it back, that will get you those, those kind of top marks, next slide please. And next will be a kind of question. It's only at five months, but we'll talk about how you balance clinical and academic roles. So the important thing to remember is that you have to hit the same standards, do the same exams as all the other radio trainees. But in theory, you have 25% less official clinical time. So you might be able to do additional time to kind of help and supplement, but you have to understand that and they want you to appreciate that, you know that and that that it's not necessarily easy and you will have to manage your time appropriately, particularly in radiology, you have exams in six months. Our specialties may not have that. You are going to a completely new specialty where you might have very little experience and it's like learning a completely new subject. It's not like core medical training, inter registrar training where there is some, there is a lot of knowledge which is passed over where in radiology, often you're starting from scratch. And it's also so specific examples that you may have day release for your academic day. So on average one day a week and you might want to say something that there might be a pa ultrasound list, which is a, for a certain, I don't know, they do ultrasound testing on a Monday morning and that's the only time they do it in your center. And do you want to go because it's good for your learning. You want to learn how to do it or you're interested in it. So therefore, you might not be to take your academic day every single Monday for the rest of your time because you'll never get to see that. So you need to be flexible with your clinical time and your academic time. So, yeah, um next slide please. So they're the mandatory questions. They may ask you an additional clinical question at the end. And so if this is a competition specialty, they have to make sure the question is relevant to all of the free specialties. So they can't ask you a very specific radiology question or a cardiology question, which they wouldn't expect enough to be to answer. So it's often emergency management of common presentations. I I could envision them asking about anaphylaxis because that may be the most likely emergency management in radiology, but it's also relevant to other specialties or what they did for me is they asked about a kind of GMC principle, the duty of Kandor in the context of a radiology scenario. So I was, I was asked, you've just done an angioplasty for an acutely ischemic limb and then following you realized you treated the wrong leg. So I was asking what would you do next? And it's about being safe and being sensible. So you want to get ok, duty of candle, speak to the patient apologize, tell them what's happened to be honest about your mistake, reassess and treat as necessary patient safety. And then it's all about the following reflect report. Um you know, follow up et cetera. Um So those kind of things, they, they may be more likely to ask you because they won't expect you to have much specific radiology knowledge and that's usually out of five bucks next question, please. So in summary, I don't see a whirlwind because it's, it's almost a whole application itself but read the N I hr guidance, it tells you everything you need to know and it's very transparent, make sure you understand the academic department you're applying to. Uh and you can, and you should prepare your answers very well. And the other thing is to make sure you link it to the theme. So if you, if the post you're applying to is linked to a theme and all those themes are described on the NHL website and make sure you link your questions and your interests to that theme because they've had been told they've had some really amazing applicants. Um That would be really good ac Fs but all of their interests were completely outside the theme of that post. So they, they, they couldn't offer it to them. So make sure you link it back. Um So yeah, so that's it really. Um Yeah, so I look forward to answering any questions that you may have. Thank you to all. Uh So guys, you have to listen to a different genre of talk. Uh This is more directed to people, those who uh want a platform which helps you develop your clinical as well as your academy skills in radiology. Uh Thank you, Tom for the wonderful talk. So guys that, so that's it. Uh We have come to the official uh end of our schedule, I think now it's time for uh any questions and answers. We are a bit late. So we want to keep it to the minimum as possible. Also request uh all of our speakers to come on online. Hi, thank you guys. That was a wonderful talk and honestly, a lot has changed in the last four or five years um towards the end of my C CT, I would say probably in the last 67 months and with this new portfolio scoring, it was also quite, quite new for me. And um if I was in your place. I wouldn't have made it. But um don't think you can't because you can and you will, you will always have to start off with that positive thinking that you will get there. So I was an international graduate. I came here did lots of jobs. I had visa restrictions. Um So long story short, I always want to do radiology and um that's what I want to do and I applied and I got in. So that's the approach you should have. Um And then try to score. Um at least the things which are quite basic and at least try to get lots of things that you can easily, lots of people are asking questions about taste a weeks. We have answered lots of questions two days a week they have mentioned. Um and it's quite self explanatory, the portfolio guidance um again for the posters or the presentations, whatever remarks it says if it's a national, it's because it's, it's as I said, it's very self explanatory. So there shouldn't be any confusion and try to get all those things before the application deadline closes. Um And MSRA I can't stress enough. This is the most important be because I remember when I applied the cut off was like 4 70 something. Um It has gone up quite significantly over the last few years because lots of people are applying in radiology. Um R LMT was taken off. So everyone is basically applying So the competition has gone quite high up. So, um, is there any questions, um, we can answer? Um, I'm afraid we don't have time to get everyone on both. So, I mean, do you see any questions which we haven't answered or? Uh, no, I think we've been answering everything as it went along. I think everyone's satisfied. Yeah. Someone has asked about outside experience. I think some people do apply. I did have 11 of my juniors who came straight um like um radiology training post was the first and it just job, although I wouldn't recommend that it's always good to have some UK experience because you get to know how the systems work. Um Otherwise you just learn um in a place and you might not find really supportive people. I've been lucky to work in departments which are quite supportive. So, um I think Tom uh you have a question, 11 person was asking about. Yeah. So yeah, it's obviously more work to do and it's tricky. I, so the, the good thing about the a application is it is earlier in the sense that the online application is open now and ends in November. So you have a bit of time to do your white space questions. You don't need to spend, you know, hours and hours and hours agonizing over it, but you do have a fair amount of time to prepare those. Um and you submit that in the beginning of November and then you'll quite quickly find out if you get an interview, it's only gonna be a few weeks or so. So obviously, if you, if you don't get an interview then you can just fully focus on the, on the exam, et cetera, but you'll, you'll know you're into your date and it happens quite quickly. So, again, it's quite intense but there, you would definitely do your, usually do your interview before you even sit your em, em. Um So again, it's hard, you got to use your own time. And I guess, uh I would say that you should probably prioritize the exam and the clinical application uh because you need to do well with that regardless of the AC F outcome. Um And actually, if you do really well in that, you might be in a privileged position where you get an AC F offer and you get a standard clinical offer and you'll have a choice of maybe two places. And there might be various reasons you'd prefer for the standard place because of the location, et cetera. Um But yeah, I, I it's obviously up to you how much time you, you, you, you balance between the two. But, um uh yeah. Uh yes, we do have whatsapp Group. Uh I think on the feedback if you provide your uh mobile number and then we'll add you to the group. Um We do have trainees on the group and like lots of other candidates and sometimes they're really helpful if you have any questions other people can answer who have been through um the cycle. So, so yeah, and as I said, MS R is quite important and to also mentioned. So I would think I was in my pediatric blocks when I start the exam. So I took some days off, I took some annual leave to study for it. So, um it's really important and so you should start now if you haven't. Um I think someone asked about feedback. So on the chat, there's a feedback link and everybody should have been automatically emailed a email, a feedback link as well. So, um if you fill out the feedback, you'll also get an attendance certificate, which you can use towards your portfolios for teaching hours if you're fy one, fy two and just general professional um sort of experience as well. Um Sit off um If you mentioned your email on the feedback form, I think that's one of the questions on there. Um We can always get your number that way. Um We're going to send out like a generic email. Uh So people can give their numbers and they can be added to the group as well. Send us a message on Twitter or one of us will ADDr due to it. Ok. Um So thank you everyone for joining. Um Thank you to all the ST ones. Amazing, my amazing team for doing this. Excellent talk and best of luck to everyone and um just start preparing for MS R A and don't worry too much about the portfolio score. Um Lots of people were asking questions even more than 30 is good because lots of people were not able to, it was just changed last minute um last year. So I don't think there are any changes this year but try to get as many marks as you can, but don't worry too much and don't stress over one mark or two marks. If you don't have in one domain or two domains, you can cover it up in interview or in MSRA. OK. That's it guys. Thank you for joining. Hope this was quite useful information for you guys. So uh all the best as a I might have said uh and see you all down in the line uh as radiologist and hopefully many of you would be doing these sessions next year. Uh Ara will be still supporting all you guys. OK. Thank you. Bye. Have a nice evening. Bye.