Interview Content
The interview will consist of four question areas which will be 5 minutes each in length. You will be marked on these questions.
Including time for questioning and changeover between questions, the interview will be approximately 25 minutes.
Please note that this is subject to change and will be confirmed by the date of interview.
This is where your application form and training to date will be reviewed. Interviewers will ask you questions based on your career, achievements to date and your engagement with training and learning.
It is important to recognise that the scores awarded to you will not purely be about your achievements, as this already contributes towards the scoring via your application form. Interviewers will be deciding upon scores via a combination of factors, for example: your responses to the questions asked, the breadth and quality of your achievements and your career progression.
This question will take approximately 5 minutes.
This question will focus on your suitability for and commitment to ST3 training in the specialty and give you opportunity to expand on the information provided in your application form.
This question will last approximately 5 minutes.
This question features assessment of an ethical scenario, and your communication skills.
This takes the form of a hypothetical situation, described briefly in text form, details of which will be given to you to read for a short while before the question.
This scenario focuses less on a clinical situation, and deals more with consideration of the moral, ethical, legal (etc.) issues and communication requirements which may arise in a particular situation.
The ethical scenario will last for five minutes.
This question will be a discussion of professionalism and governance.
This discussion will be prompted by a short question (often a single sentence) provided by interviewers. This will not be given to you before - this will be given verbally by interviewers once ethical scenario discussion is finished. This question will last approximately 5 minutes
This section of the interview is designed to assess your demonstration and understanding of professionalism and governance in a given situation.
Familiarise yourself with Good Medical Practice
Please note - assessment here is underpinned by the principles of GMC Good Medical Practice.
Scoring Framework
The score of 1-5 an interviewer will award you for each assessment area is judged in relation to how well you perform against an expected level. Below is the framework used to award scores at interview, as well as interpretation of what these scores represent:
|
Mark
|
Rating
|
Assessment
|
|
1 |
poor |
not considered appointable |
|
2 |
area for concern |
performed below the level expected; possibly unappointable, subject to discussion and performance in other areas |
|
3 |
satisfactory |
performed at the level expected during CT2; the candidate is suitable for an ST3 / LAT post |
|
4 |
good |
above average ability; the candidate is suitable for an ST3 / LAT post |
|
5 |
excellent |
highly performing trainee; the candidate is suitable for an ST3 / LAT post |
As shown in the table, for each of the question areas at interview, 3/5 is considered a satisfactory score; and reflects the level of performance that would be expected of a trainee ready to progress to a specialty training programme.
Should your performance go above and beyond this expected level, interviewers can award marks of 4/5 or 5/5 as appropriate.
Conversely, should your interview performance not reach the expected level, then interviewers can award marks of 1/5 or 2/5, as reflects their level of concern over your performance.
Appointability
From the eight scores awarded during your interview, an 'appointability' status will be calculated to determine whether you can be considered for an offer.
The intention is to ensure successful candidates can display competence consistently across all areas of assessment covered at interview, rather than allowing outstanding achievement in one or more areas to make up for sub-par performance elsewhere.
Appointability is awarded automatically and is based on two factors: individual interview scores and the 'raw interview score'.
Appointability criteria
To be classed as 'appointable', you must meet three criteria below:
- none of your 8 interview scores can be 1/5
- no more than two of your 8 interview scores can be 2/5
- your RIS must be 24 or above.
If you meet all three requirements, your application will be assessed as appointable, and can progress to be considered for post offers.
However, if you fail to meet any of these requirements, your application must then be assessed as not appointable, and it will progress no further in that round.
Total Score
After interview, a weighting is applied to the scores in each area, as well as your application score.
These scores are then combined to give your total score which determines your ranking, which will in turn be used to inform how offers are made. The weighting of different sections, as well as the method by which your total score is established, is detailed in the table accessible through the link below:
|
|
Interviewer 1
|
Interviewer 2
|
Weighting
|
Max score
|
|
Question 1 |
||||
|
Application & training |
/ 5 |
/ 5 |
1.2 |
12 |
|
Question 2 |
||||
|
Suitability and commitment |
/ 5 |
/ 5 |
2.5 |
25 |
|
Question 3 |
||||
|
Ethical communication |
/ 5 |
/ 5 |
2.5 |
25 |
|
Question 4 |
|
|||
|
Professionalism & Governance |
/ 5 |
/ 5 |
1.8 |
18 |
|
Raw interview score |
/ 40 |
|||
|
Interview score (w weighting) |
/ 80 |
|||
|
Application score |
/ 56 |
0.36 |
/ 20.16 |
|
|
Total score |
/ 100.16 |
|||
If delivering high-quality, patient-centred care is up your street, then palliative medicine could be the specialty for you.
Its rewards are endless, which shouldn't be surprising given that its hallmark is holistic care of the highest possible standard.
Palliative medicine - trainee characteristics
Those entering the specialty should:
-
be skilled communicators, with the desire to improve yet further
-
bring enthusiasm and dynamism to multidisciplinary team-working
-
have an interest in ethical issues and a commitment to finding the best way forward when challenges arise
-
enjoy complex decision-making, often as part of a team, and always in conjunction with patients and families.
Working/training in an ST3 palliative medicine post
Unique training
Palliative medicine specialist training is like no other. You will learn to care for patients with a great range of illnesses, of all ages and in all settings.
Contrary to misconceptions, it is about far more than dying; rather it is about enabling patients and families to make the most of living.
You will strive to provide optimum symptom control, psychological support and practical assistance to those with both malignant and non-malignant life-limiting conditions.
Your training will take you into patients' own homes, to A&E departments, hospices, oncology and renal units, and more.
This breadth of experience is key; as a consultant you may work as part of a hospital, hospice or community palliative care team, or often a combination.
Specialty evolution
Palliative medicine's evidence base is evolving at a great rate, although it will never be a protocol-driven specialty.
It requires you to think on your feet, and to use empathy and pragmatism, as well as science, to make the right clinical decisions.
Specialist training can be entered from a variety of core training programmes (medical, surgical, anaesthetic and GP). It is completed over four years full-time, or pro-rata if training flexibly.
There are numerous opportunities alongside your clinical training to participate in education, research and service development.
Rewarding
Palliative medicine is, without doubt, a challenging field in which to work. However, the potential for improving patients' and families' quality of life is vast, and therefore the rewards are there for the taking.
Your only challenge is in gaining one of the highly sought-after training posts. Go for it!
Medical Care
Find out more about palliative medicine and the services delivered by the specialty on Medical Care – the RCP’s online guide to service design.
Further information
General / application queries
For general queries relating to areas such as eligibility criteria, making an application or the Oriel system, please contact the Physician Specialty Recruitment Office.
Queries regarding the progress of a submitted application should be directed to the lead recruiter for this specialty. The lead recruiter for palliative medicine in 2021 is West Midlands.
| Health Education West Midlands | |
|---|---|
| Postal address | Health Education West Midlands 1st Floor St Chads Court 213 Hagley Road Edgbaston Birmingham B16 9RG |
| Email address | specialtyrecruitment.wm@hee.nhs.uk |
| Website | www.westmidlandsdeanery.nhs.uk |
Eligibility
Please be aware that this specialty accepts applicants from other training routes, in addition to core-level physician training: anaesthetics, emgergency medicine, general practice and surgery.
Non-physician applicants must have obtained the basic specialty professional examination in addition to specific clinical experience and competences to be eligible. All applicants, regardless of their training pathway, must have gained specific physician experience and competence. Please view the specialty's person specification for information about the requirements for applying from a non-physician background and the deadlines for when this must be achieved.
Please note that palliative medicine has a separate 'Alternative certificate of core comptence' to other medical specialties and applicants who have not come via core medical training or ACCS acute medicine need to be able to have this form completed at time of application. The form is available to download from the document library of this website.
Physician trainees can view the standard eligibility criteria as detailed in the am I eligible? section.
Changes to entry pathways from 2022
From 2022 recruitment, changes to the curriculum requires that all trainees in this specialty must dual train with general internal medicine and will not be able to discontinue training in Internal Medicine Stage 2. As a consequence, 2021 is the last year that entry is open to trainees from a non-physician background.
Applicants for this specialty should be particularly aware of this requirement as the current curriculum does not involve dual training with general internal medicine. Trainees from non-physician backgrounds who are appointed to this specialty may be able to apply for exception to the curriculum transition requirements; however, this is yet to be confirmed by the GMC.
Trainees recruiting to this specialty in 2021 will have to transit to the new curricula in 2022. The exact requirements for curriculum transition are being agreed with the GMC.
Provisional post numbers
Specialty vacancy numbers are available in the table below, broken down by region and divided between substantive national training number (NTN) and locum appointment for training (LAT) posts.
It is the intention that initial post numbers for all regions will be published prior to the application opening date, although this cannot be guaranteed. Numbers will be updated as and when notifications are received from each region and will be checked later in the round when programme preferences are open for selection.
Numbers subject to change
Please be aware that it is not uncommon for vacancy numbers to change throughout the round.
More commonly, post vacancy numbers can increase as the round goes on (and confirmation of posts becomes available); but it is also possible that numbers can reduce as well. On average post numbers rise between 20-40% from the start to the finish of the round but this can vary greatly for individual specialty/region combinations.
It is possible that regions which do not have a post at the start of the round may declare one after applications have closed. Whilst we try and minimise instances of this, it is not always possible to predict vacancies so even if there appears not to be a vacancy in your preferred specialty/region combination, you may wish to consider applying in case one becomes available during the round; you can check with the region concerned if you wish to check on the likelihood of a post arising.
Generally, once a region enter a post into a round they would always have at least one post available and would only withdraw it in exceptional circumstances.
Round 1 interview dates & posts
| Region | NTN posts | LAT posts* | Evidence upload date(s) | Interview date(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Midlands | TBC | N/A |
TBC |
TBC |
| East Midlands | TBC | N/A | ||
| East of England | TBC | N/A | ||
| London and KSS |
London - TBC |
N/A | ||
| North East | TBC | N/A | ||
| North West |
Mersey TBC |
N/A | ||
|
North Western TBC |
N/A | |||
| South West |
Peninsula TBC |
N/A | ||
|
Severn TBC |
N/A | |||
| Thames Valley | TBC | N/A | ||
| Wessex | TBC | N/A | ||
| Yorkshire & Humber | TBC | N/A | ||
| Northern Ireland | TBC | TBC | ||
| Scotland** | TBC | TBC | ||
| Wales | TBC | TBC |
*English LATs
Please note, English regions do not recruit to LAT posts.
**Scotland post numbers
If you are interested in working in Scotland, a breakdown of post numbers by the four Scottish deaneries is available on the Scottish Medical Training website. This has details of all specialty training post numbers in Scotland, including specialties which are not part of the nationally-coordinated process.
Please note that whilst we endeavour to keep the Physician ST3 recruitment website up to date, the SMT website will always be the more accurate one where they differ.
Please note that due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, certain recruitment processes have been affected for round 2 ST3 PSRO-coordinated specialties. As a result, the below information on this page is not applicable for this round only and should not be used where the process has changed. Please refer to the applicant guide for the latest information about how round 2 will operate.
Further guidance about the scoring format of interviews will be published to each specialty page and we hope to have this updated by application closing date. Please visit the specialty pages closer to the time for updated information.
Interview content
You will spend approximately 10 minutes at each of the three interview stations, with three-to-five minutes' transfer time between each. Thus the overall time for the interview will be approximately 40-45 minutes.
Click on the relevant stations below for more information on the content of the interview.
Please note that this is subject to change, and will be confirmed by the date of interview.
This is where your application form and training to date will be reviewed. This will include checking the documentation you have brought along to ensure all content on your application form is correct.
Evidence checking
Normally your evidence folder will have been reviewed by the interviewers immediately prior to your arrival in the station. They will be:
• Checking that your achievements in your evidence folder match that claimed on your application form.
• Considering your career progression to date.
• Identifying areas about which they may wish to question you during the interview.
Areas for assessment
The two main aspects of discussion here, on which you will be assessed, will be your suitability for and commitment to ST3 training in the specialty, and your achievements and engagement with training and learning to date.
Scoring at the station
It is important to recognise that the scores awarded to you at this station will not purely be about your achievements, as this already contributes towards the scoring via your application form. Interviewers will be deciding upon scores via a combination of factors, for example: your responses to the questions asked, the breadth and quality of your achievements and your career progression.
Station 2
Prior to arriving at station 2 you will be given a clinical scenario to review. Upon arrival at the station you will be asked questions relating to this scenario.
This will then be followed by a discussion on professionalism & governance.
The clinical scenario will be relatively brief (two/three sentences), so once you have read this, the remainder of the pre-station time will allow you to undertake some short preparation (just mental preparation - this does not mean making notes, etc.)Scenario considerations
The scenario will describe a hypothetical clinical situation which has arisen in which you are, or have become, involved. Some points to consider when reviewing the scenario and preparing for discussion are:-
what steps you would take
- any potential treatments possible
- any further information you would gather
- how you would go about communicating with any people (eg patients, family members, colleagues) involved in the scenario.
Professionalism & governance
Following the clinical scenario will be discussion of professionalism & governance.
This discussion will be prompted by a short question (often a single sentence) provided by interviewers. This will be given verbally by interviewers once clinical scenario discussion is finished.
This section of the interview is designed to assess your demonstration and understanding of professionalism and governance in a given situation.
Familiarise yourself with Good Medical Practice
Please note - assessment of professionalism and governance is underpinned by the principles of GMC Good Medical Practice.
This station will feature assessment of an ethical scenario, and discussion of your communication skills.
Ethical scenario
As with the clinical scenario at station 2, this takes the form of a hypothetical situation, described briefly in text form, details of which will be given to you before arriving at the station.
This scenario focuses less on a clinical situation, and deals more with consideration of the moral, ethical, legal (etc.) issues and communication requirements which may arise in a particular situation.
The ethical scenario will last for eight minutes and includes an actor for role play.
Communication assessment
Following the ethical scenario will be a two minute reflection of your communication skills displayed at this station. Here you will reflect on how well you think the ethical scenario went.
Areas for assessment
One mark will be awarded to you based on your suggestions and responses to the ethical scenario. The second mark will be on the communication and reflection skills you display.
Interview scoring
Appointable - automatic
If you are awarded a score of at least 3/5, for all marks given to you at your interview, then you will automatically be classed as appointable.
If your 12 interview scores contain one or two marks of 2/5 (and the rest 3/5 or above), and you receive a total raw interview score of 36 or above, then you will automatically be classed as appointable.
Not appointable - automatic
If any of the 12 scores awarded to you at interview are 1/5, this will reflect poor performance and an area of major concern.
If three or more of your 12 interview scores are of 2/5, this will reflect several areas of concern across your whole interview.
Should your interview assessment falls under either category above, the level of concern over your potential progression to ST3 will see your application classed automatically as not appointable .
Total score calculation
After interview, a weighting is applied to the scores in each area, and a score derived from your application form is then added to give your total score. This score determines your ranking which is used to inform how offers are made. The weighting of different sections, as well as the method by which your total score is established, can be seen by clicking on 'Total score calculation' below.
Please note that this is subject to change, and will be confirmed by the date of interview.
Application score calculation
The initial application score is used to shortlist applications. At interview this specialty reviews achievements from the application form against the re-scoring matrix in the document below to calculate the score which will contribute to the total score.
Whilst some achievements do not directly contribute to the re-scoring matrix, they will form part of the interviewers’ assessment in station 1 when awarding their score. In particular, quality improvement and teaching normally form a major part of the questioning in this station and as such are likely to significantly influence interviewers’ scoring; which will affect both the total score and determination of appointability. Thus these two domains should not be overlooked or considered any less important in any application.
| Int. 1 | Int. 2 | Weighting | Max score | |
| Station 1 | ||||
| Evidence | / 5 | / 5 | x1.6 | / 16 |
| Suitability for specialty | / 5 | / 5 | x1.2 | / 12 |
| Station 2 | ||||
| Clinical scenario | / 5 | / 5 | x1.6 | / 16 |
| Professionalism and governance | / 5 | / 5 | x1.2 | / 12 |
| Station 3 | ||||
| Ethical communication scenario | / 5 | / 5 | x1.6 | / 16 |
| Communication mark | / 5 | / 5 | x0.8 | / 8 |
| Raw interview score | / 60 | |||
| Interview score (including weighting) | / 80 | |||
| Evidence score - scored at station 1, based on achievements claimed on the application form | / 20 | |||
| Overall assessment score | / 100 | |||
As part of the process of applying to ST3, you may wish to gain an idea of how recruitment progressed in previous years for the various specialties participating in the nationally-coordinated recruitment.
To this end, we have published data dating back to 2013 (where this is available), based around four main areas:
-
Competition ratios - application numbers submitted to each specialty, along with the number of NTN and LAT posts available in each. It is worth noting that posts are subject to change throughout the round (increasing on average between 20-40%), and post numbers for this data are taken at the end of the round.
-
Shortlist scores - the scores awarded to all submitted applications, including average scores and distribution nationally.
-
Total scores - the total score awarded to all candidates who completed the full recruitment process for a specialty (application and interview), including some analysis of scores.
-
Post fill rates - the number of posts filled by region.
We have published information for all specialties participating in our process that year; consequently not all specialties will have data in all cases.
Round 1
| Year | Apps. | NTN posts | LAT posts | Total posts | Comp. | Unique* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 91 | 22 | 2 | 24 | 3.8 | 73% |
| 2018 | 106 | 37 | 1 | 38 | 2.8 | 71% |
| 2017 | 99 | 25 | 4 | 29 | 3.4 | 78% |
| 2016 | 126 | 39 | 1 | 40 | 3.2 | 68% |
| 2015 | 124 | 31 | 9 | 40 | 3.1 | 73% |
* the percentage of unique candidates that only applied to this specialty (out of the 24 PSRO-coordinated specialties)
Round 2
| Year | Apps. | NTN posts | LAT posts | Total posts | Comp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 26 | 12 | 0 | 12 | 2.2 |
| 2017 | 31 | 15 | 1 | 16 | 1.9 |
| 2016 | 22 | 6 | 1 | 7 | 3.1 |
| 2015 | 35 | 11 | 6 | 17 | 2.1 |
