You may be aware that for ages superheros lived in comics, or graphic novels, with faint nostalgic hints at TV shows from long ago. They emerged into film, then series of films, and then spilled into flooding the TV market with 13-episode long story arcs and much brooding.

Following this media sensation, and after the blazing success of the cinema-esque ‘Tops Tips for New Consultants”, and the marginally less successful sequel “Top Part-time Tips for New Consultants” the studio feel that now is the time to launch a full series of blogs about the transition between senior trainee and early career consultant.

So here’s the trailer … starring Ian Wacogne, Vin Diwakar, and Helen Jenkinson …

One of the largest hurdles in a medical career is the transition from being a junior to a senior doctor.   The aim of this series of blogs is, in three thematic chunks, to deal with the following:

• Getting Shortlisted for a senior post interview, with an emphasis on starting this very, very early.

“If you’re a month or two from applying for a senior post, and if this is the first time you’ve thought about this, then you’ve left it too late.   If you’re reading this four or five years ahead of application, that’s about right.”

• Getting Through the Interview. We’re not intending to tell you what questions to ask, but we will try to tell you who to talk to and what to think about.

“Technically speaking it isn’t an interview panel – it’s an appointments advisory board, whose job is to advise the trust board on an appointment.  But since you’ll think of it as an interview panel, and for all intents and purposes it is, then we’ll refer to it as such. “

• Getting through the first few months in a post. We found these some of the most stressful times in our careers, and although you’ll find no shortage of advice out there, we’d like to synthesise these into some basic principles.

“For us, it was the second most difficult career transition we’ve had to make – the first being the transition from being a medical student to being a doctor. “

While this series is mostly aimed at a paediatric trainee in the UK applying for consultant level posts, we’d hope that there are enough general principles here to make it of interest to anyone attending a medical interview for a senior level post.

• Ian Wacogne, Vin Diwakar, and Helen Jenkinson