Our workshops – Career planning for doctors

Career development workshops

We deliver career development workshops for groups of doctors at every career stage from F1 through to late-career. The workshops are most effective when the participants are at a similar career stage. We consider our trainer/educator workshops to be particularly important, the trainer/educator often being the first port of call when a trainee has a career dilemma.

F1 and F2 career planning

Just as soon as F1 doctors have got the hang of being qualified, the next stage of recruitment looms on the horizon. Though over 50% of foundation doctors now take an additional ‘F3′ year, the need to plan doesn’t go away. Our F1 workshop presents a reliable, structured approach which F1 doctors can use right away (or at a later stage for those opting for an F3 year) to plan and realise their longer-term career goals.

Our F2 workshop focuses on reviewing doctors’ career plans, helping them check that their plans suit their needs well. We encourage doctors to consider if they can identify a back-up plan that they would also be happy with. The session covers preparing for CT1 / ST1 applications to maximise the chance of success, as well as what to do if you don’t succeed and what to do if you don’t feel ready to make a choice.

IMT career planning

Of all the core training programmes, IMT arguably offers the widest array of specialties to follow upon completion. This workshop, suitable for IMT 1 and 2, will help participants identify the options that might suit them best (or their comfort with their choice if they have already made one). We go on to help participants prepare for ST selection, covering application forms, demonstrating commitment to the specialty and succeeding at interview.

SAS Doctor career planning

SAS doctors often provide the backbone of clinical care in the NHS. Yet their career pathways are often unclear. These doctors can feel overlooked or unsure how to pursue their career goals. This workshop helps participants take stock of their aptitudes and interests so as to start to construct a longer-term career action plan. For some, this may involve applying for an NTN or aiming to complete their training through the portfolio (CESR) route. Others may be able to enhance their career satisfaction by taking on some additional responsibilities like teaching or service development.

Applying for consultant posts

As trainees approach the last stage of their training programme, it can be helpful to construct a career action plan, aiding the transition to their first consultant post. This workshop introduces participants to our structured career planning approach. There is then the need to prepare for consultant selection. Topics covered include: identifying what is weak in your CV so as to be able to remedy these areas, identifying your career ‘anchors’ to maximise career satisfaction, investigating consultant posts, and interview preparation.

The mid-career review

Support is often available for newly appointed consultants, but opportunities to engage in in-depth career reflection 10+ years into the consultant role are harder to come by. Using a structured approach to career planning, and with the optional use of psychometric personality tools, participants can identify short-term and medium-term career goals. There is also the opportunity to consider how work commitments fit together with other aspects of one’s life.

Retirement Planning

This workshop is designed for senior clinicians approaching retirement. Traditionally, retirement planning focuses narrowly on financial planning. Although money is important – and we do touch on it in the session – our main focus is more psychological. The workshop helps participants manage the transition from work to retirement to maximise their overall wellbeing.

Supporting trainees to plan their careers

It is tempting to leave career planning to chance, hoping your trainee will somehow imbibe your own or someone else’s approach. This workshop teaches the trainers how to be pro-active in raising the issue of career planning, outlines a helpful structure for career decision-making and explains how to use the structure in order to help your trainees make robust career decisions. All this can be accomplished using a mentoring approach to supervision.

Wellbeing workshops

We deliver workshops on wellbeing for groups of doctors and/or other health professionals. We cover the principles of wellbeing, burnout, anxiety, and depression. We start by reviewing the compelling evidence that the major drivers of occupational burnout are systemic rather than individual. We then explore what individuals can do to reduce their risk of burnout, focusing on the need to ask for support from others when it’s needed, including from peers and senior management. We also consider the issue of integrating work with aspects of our lives beyond work. By the end of the workshop, participants will have constructed their own career wellbeing action plan.

New: Neurodiversity workshops

All groups are composed of neurodiverse as well as neurotypical people. This applies to groups of health professionals, trainers and to patients. The 2010 Equality Act mandates that reasonable adjustments must be made to allow disabled people to do their jobs. But what counts as reasonable, and who should take responsibility for suggesting the adjustments and implementing them? What’s possible in healthcare settings? This is a new workshop which we will deliver in partnership with those who have the disability in question. In the first instance, we will focus on Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD), ADHD, and Dyslexia to help doctors with these conditions (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) as well as their trainers.

Mentoring

Many organizations have mentoring schemes. Those delivering the mentoring are often highly skilled professionals who may, nonetheless, lack confidence to mentor, if their mentoring training has been cursory. The mentoring workshop provides an experiential exposure to different styles of communication. Important ethical issues are also explored as well as some techniques to allow mentees to be goal oriented and ultimately take something valuable from the mentoring experience.

Photo of an old-fashioned typewriter and phone

For a confidential, no-obligation conversation about your career needs, please do not hesitate to get in touch.