Interview Skills for Core Surgical Training

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About the course

Overview

This is a one day course is designed to prepare foundation trainees (and medical students), who are considering a career in surgery, for the core surgical training interviews. With fierce competition for core surgical training places, participants can benefit from gaining insight into the interview process, the opportunity to practice their interview skills, and from the feedback on interview performance from senior surgeons. This course is aimed at foundation trainees and final year medical students.

Target Audience

This one day intense practical course is focused entirely on the practical aspects of interview. The course is delivered in OSCE design and aimed at foundation trainees considering a career in surgery.

Learning Style

On the day there will be short PowerPoint presentations and majority of the time will be devoted to OSCE station interview practice, detailed portfolio review, role-play and video with one to one feedback. There will also be an opportunity to discuss questions about your specific surgical career pathway portfolio in detail with our trainers.

Aims & Objectives

This intensive, practical simulation course is designed to prepare foundation trainees, who are considering a career in surgery, for the core surgical training interviews.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this course, participants will be able to: 1) Describe common themes for interview questions and strategies for approaching them; 2) Describe the interview process, calendar and requirements for interview; 3) Present themselves appropriately for interview; 4) Demonstrate positive non-verbal communication in an interview situation; 5) Describe the strenghts and weaknesses in their interview performance; 6) Describe how to address weaknesses in interview performance; 7) Describe the common pitfalls in interview performance; 8) Apply techniques for managing anxiety in the interview context; 9) Visualise a typical core surgical training interview set-up.

Participant Feedback

"I am sending this email to say thank you to the College for organising this course! It really has helped my interview and managed to get my first choice of my CST job in Plastic Theme in North East England" ; "Loved the relevance of the topics. Very well themed mock interviews - Prepares you well. Good feedback from interviewers about weaknesses and strengths" ; "Pairing up with a partner takes the edge off and also you get to see/learn from each other. All faculty were extremely helpful and provided good feedback. Relevant interview questions delivered" ; "This course will make a huge difference to my performance at the interview. Thank you for organising this!"

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