Mark Lewis and the Great Application Race
14 Jan, 08 | by Mark Lewis
Week 1 Of the 2008 Great Application Race is Over! No one has any idea who holds the yellow jersey or even if there
really is one to win at all!
Congratulations must go to this year’s organisers - someone has spent a long time typing the exact application forms we used 2 years ago but fortunately taken away all the formatting and then locked the document to stop anyone making the applications look nice (or easier to read!)
Those that went with the online application form have engineered a wonderful 15 page effort, with an average completion time of around 2.5 hours and despite different regions using the same website, you require a different
password and log on each time.
Thanks also to the trusts for their kind sponsoring of the events. Denying access to the websites from the hospital
network has led to many innovative ways of trying to fill the forms in and cut the less IT savvy out of the game.
Well, no system is perfect, I certainly wouldn’t like to be responsible for designing one, but having all the applications at once, for regions rather than specific jobs and doing at the same time as College exams is
proving frustrating. Plus the applications have a rather worrying disclaimer with them ; “It is possible that final
post numbers may differ, and that where the numbers of posts are very small, we may eventually have no vacancies,
and will, therefore, hold no interview.)”
I guess that would be surgery then …
I spent about 3 hours on Sunday struggling wiht my application forms, and will probably spend the same again tonight! I have no idea what to write for the “scenarios” because I’m not in clinical medicine at the moment, oh well, I guess there is always next year!
Amy
January 14th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I am stuck in a more difficult situation. With over 4 years experience in obs and Gynae(not in NHS) and working in Publich health at the moment. The last clinical experience dates to 4 years back. I have no other way to prove my clinical competencies. It doesnt matter if I can get a referre to comment on my skills to perform C-sections independantly but I still don’t qualify for STI as I can not complete any of the competencies form which need experience of last 3 years.
Feels like only fools or horses…
Kiran
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I sympathize with you guys. Getting a job at my time was hard enough but at least it was a level playing field and there was no government interference, sorry, improvements. Then, it was up to you to present your case and you were judged on your medical skills and personality. Nowadays it seems a matter of luck rather than judgement. Perhaps it is the government’s way of introducing you to the future of medicine as they see it. It is a system where political skills are more important than medical competence and where organizations count and people don’t. When it all implodes I suppose they will claim they weren’t at fault it was circumstances beyond their control e.g. there were the wrong kind of leaves on the railway track.
ralph
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I have just completed applying for the precious little ST3 in surgery following FTSTA2 at present. Umm… the forgotten tribe! The great hulla-bulla last year about the forms being more about creative writing rather than medical expertise, and this year there is more of the same.
Sathya
January 25th, 2008 at 3:22 pm