Interview season will soon be here – It’s time to make sure that your portfolio scores as many points as possible to give you the best chance of getting the training programme you want.
Whilst there’s not enough time left to gain extra points through an additional degree or even a publication, there are some relatively quick and easy ways for you to add crucial points to your portfolio. Here are 3 quick things to consider…
Courses
Most specialty applications offer points for attending courses. Completing a course before the application deadline allows you to add those extra points to your portfolio and gives you more to talk about at interview. Online courses are often be a better option if you need points quickly, as they tend to be faster to access, more convenient and you don’t need to take study leave to do them (although you can often still use your study budget…)
As well as courses specific to your specialty, more general courses count too. One great option is the Medset Train The Trainers Course, which is CPD-accredited, online and equivalent to a 2-day face-to-face course.
Teaching
Most of us teach on the job, but it’s often only informal or semi-structured, which doesn’t score very highly in applications. To boost your score in this area, try organising a small series (4 or more) short formalised teaching sessions for medical students or other members of the team. This can easily be done over 2 to 4 weeks. You don’t need lots of participants and the teaching does not need to be done by you in order to the score points. Make sure you collect evidence in the form of feedback (you can use Google Forms to do this electronically) and if possible you can get supporting evidence from a consultant.
You can also evidence your abilities as a teacher through providing a certificate showing that you have attended a Teach The Teacher Course. Some applications specify that this must be a 2-day course in order to score points.
Audit
Audit or Quality Improvement Projects (QIPs) can be a great way to boost your portfolio when you have limited time. The key is picking the right project. An ideal project should have data that is easy to collect – you don’t want to be sifting through the handwritten notes of a long list of patients. Instead, your ideal data will be in a digital format and either numerical (e.g. length of stay) or a binary yes/no question (e.g. was a VTE assessment done on admission). This will allow you to collect a large amount of data in a relatively short time.
The other aspect to consider is your intervention. Your ideal intervention won’t take long to implement. Consider things like staff education, posters, proformas, checklists or even emails. These can be developed and implemented in a short space of time allowing you to complete the audit cycle sooner.
