10 things to know about, to get into U.K. training programmes

These are my top 10 recommendations to help you improve yourself for the U.K. training programs :

1. Try to figure out your specialty of choice early  

It's best to know about, in which field of medicine you want to specialize in, early. This helps you focus on building your C.V. , towards that specialty. 

Focused CVs are appreciated more during interviews.

2. Your degrees help

Having additional degrees , obtained before, during or after your MBBS course, score you higher. 

E.g. Following are few degrees which help you score higher when you apply for Core Surgical Training :

• Degree obtained during medical course (eg intercalation, BSC, BA, etc)
• MPhil Master of Philosophy
• Single-year postgraduate course (eg MSc,MA,MRes, etc) 
• MD Doctor of Medicine
• BMedSci awarded at University of Nottingham
• PhD or DPhil Doctor of Philosophy  

Degrees in teaching help too ( PGCert / MSc Education etc. )

3. Courses show commitment 

Try to attend courses related to your specialty of choice and obtain certificates of completion. 

U.K. based courses are preferred.

E.g. FESS (Sinus surgery) course , if you want to apply in E.N.T.

4. Awards matter 

Scholarship & bursary awarded during medical undergraduate training or later will help your CV shine. 

5. Quality improvement projects & Clinical Audits 

QIPs are usually undertaken when working in the U.K.. If you can try arranging one in your home country during/post- MBBS, it will help you during your application.

6. Teach

Teaching fellow students/colleagues pays back in the long run. For every teaching session you undertake, try to collect evidence as formal feedback. Teaching sessions can range from simple ward based teaching with a patient to formal class based lectures.You can use various feedback forms available on the internet. One of them has been linked below - 

Feedback form : https://www.jrcptb.org.uk/sites/default/files/Evaluation%20Form%20for%20teaching%20and%20presentations_0.docx

7. Take part in research and publish it

Find a mentor teacher in your college and try to come up with a research project which is feasible for you. Set deadlines and aim to publish it in a PubMed indexed journal.

Search here to check whether your journal of choice is PubMed indexed for not : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/

8. Presentation before Publication

Present your research in a local/regional/national/international conference as a poster/oral presentation, before you publish it in a journal.

International oral presentation make your score the highest.

Following are few of the research projects which I worked on in my medical college and presented at the following places : 

U.S.A. : https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/ajrccm-conference.2017.195.1_MeetingAbstracts.A4589

Switzerland : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012369217306761

9. Take up leadership roles

Few example can include being a  representative of societies or a medical event organizer.

10. Improve your interpersonal skills 

Interpersonal skills will help you do well in the UK ( most of the exams and interviews include inter-personal skills testing). Introspect, read books and  practice.