1 Education Department Medical careers – latest research and implications for GP educators and appraisers Dr Joan Reid Education/Head of Careers

2 Education Department Overview Factors influencing specialty choice and implications – Oxford Medical Careers Group Some case studies Medical careers - metaphors Career Odyssey HEKSS careers team – resources available to you Questions

3 Education Department Factors that influence specialty choice Interest in the specialty Aptitude Temperament and personality Preferred styles of working Opportunities Luck Source: Goldacre et al 2012

4 Education Department Factors influencing the decision to reject a speciality Work-life balance – most common factor in acute hospital specialties and for women Job content and previous experience – general practice, psychiatry and pathology most likely to be rejected although they are least likely to be rejected because of work-life balance Other reasons - training quality and content, competition (difficult examinations and competition for posts), stress levels and working conditions However, there is “considerable diversity between doctors in their reasons for finding specialities attractive or unattractive.” Source: Goldacre et al 2012

5 Education Department What might this mean for medical education? Hours of work and intensity of working hours – how might these dissuade some doctors from considering some specialties as career choices? Job content – are doctors rejecting specialties on the basis of accurate information about what each specialty entails? Diversity of medical practice – underlines the importance of recruitment strategies to medical school that include diversity of students’ interests, aptitudes, temperament and personality. Further work – could investigate how well informed doctors are about their future choice of specialty when they make their first choice (Goldacre et al 2012)

6 Education Department Case studies Four case studies - in pairs, discuss one of the case studies: How might you approach a career interview with this doctor? What are the main issues presented here? How might you move forward with this doctor? What might be some areas which you will need to work through with this doctor? What else might need to happen for this doctor? Articles you might find interesting: Twenge 2009 and GenUp report 2008

7 Education Department Medical careers – metaphors Positions and journeys Battles and races Crossroads Journey Mapping the territory A medical career was like “climbing up Mount Everest without a guide or having trained or knowing the route, or even a map” About medical careers Doctor as hero Medical bubble Travelator in an airport (which you can’t get off) Gordian knot – understanding the tangled sub-plots Stately home Source: Reid, 2012

8 Education Department The Career Odyssey

9 Education Department Career decision making in medicine Stage 3 Decision: next career choice Stage 2 Realisation: better range of expertise may include tasters Stage 1 Undifferentiated: Usually undergraduates but may extend to foundation training years Increase job content knowledge Provide range of career support education and activities Medical School Postgraduate Medical Education Based on The career decision phase pyramid (Collins, 2012) and reprinted with permission

10 Education Department HEKSS career team supports postgraduate doctors ROADS to success – book, ebook and eworkbook One to one drop in sessions in trusts Individual referrals to the career team Work and wellbeing – trainee support card Faculty development – career support workshops and MA Managing Medical Careers NHS medical careers website – Foundation doctors: F1/F2 workshops in trusts, career planning card for F1s, tasters in F1 and specialty champions (initiative with STFS)

11 Education Department Any questions? Useful links: HEKSS/Careers we-can-do-you we-can-do-you Career support workshops PG Cert Leading and Developing Healthcare Careers and MA/Dip Managing Medical Careers careers NHS Medical Careers website Careers team Joan Reid Lisa Stone Margaret Holbrough Kathleen Sullivan

12 Education Department References Browning, G. & Worman, D Gen Up - how the four generations work. London: CIPD. Collins, J A Participant Evaluation of Foundation Year 2 Taster Modules. MA Managing Medical Careers, University of Brighton. Goldacre, M. J., Goldacre, R. & Lambert, T. W Doctors who considered but did not pursue specific clinical specialties as careers: questionnaire surveys. JRSM, 105, Reid, J Medical Careers and Coaching - an Exploratory Study. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, Special issue No. 6, Twenge, J. M Generational changes and their impact in the classroom: teaching Generation Me. Medical Education, 43,