Academic Foundation Programme 2015

I think the general trend now is that academic jobs are seen as this 'elite' thing, opposed to the thing people do if they have a genuine interest in academic medicine or might want to see if academic medicine is for them because they haven't been exposed to that many opportunities as an undergrad. Unfortunately - the latter is now impossible - as you cannot get an AFP without some previous experience of research because of the way the system works... so it's not really a taster any more... and we have people with PhDs and 3 years of research experience going for these jobs. I don't think it helped to have AFP on the same application form as the normal UKFPO as this has massively increased competition with some people thinking... 'oh I'll just go it for and see what happens' with no real interest in research. More and more people are applying year after year and I'm sure many have no real academic interest - the jobs are just seen as prestigious.

I think the initial aim of the AFP was to get more people interested in a career in academic medicine - to inspire people, to give people a taster of what it's like. Now I think a lot of it is people applying because it's what people who are good enough do - which obviously deprives people who are less CV orientated in their day to day medical school life (everyone knows people in every medical school who do things purely to pad the CV without a genuine interest or passion) but are genuinely interested and excited by research. This is the system where 5 letters to the editor on Thames AFP (I didn't apply Thames) count for more points than a single, methodologically strong RCT which you yourself designed, conducted and wrote up. This is the system where people pay big money to go to a conference to stick up a poster - great if you get a bursary or funding but not everyone does and not everyone can afford it (plus, from experience, conferences accept virtually everything for posters).

A proper robust meta-analysis on a big topic may take years to complete and just the search is enough of a pain. If you've completed this and written it up, say even if you've submitted it and it's going through peer review - as long as it isn't published, it counts for nothing at all, not even as much as a published PubMed indexed letter to the editor, which is complete peanuts to produce. This is somewhat an extension of 'publish or perish' - essentially, we are rewarding quantity over quality - we are rewarding low quality but high quantity research output - papers which are completely trash and completely and utterly un-citeable. But what do you expect if you put in place a system that awards points for the sheer number of publications and presentations??

I don't think it's a problem with the AFP though - but rather academia in general - a problem I'm sure all of us will encounter in our future careers.

But good luck for cascade and I hope you get a Thames job you want

I think the general trend now is that academic jobs are seen as this 'elite' thing, opposed to the thing people do if they have a genuine interest in academic medicine or might want to see if academic medicine is for them because they haven't been exposed to that many opportunities as an undergrad. Unfortunately - the latter is now impossible - as you cannot get an AFP without some previous experience of research because of the way the system works... so it's not really a taster any more... and we have people with PhDs and 3 years of research experience going for these jobs. I don't think it helped to have AFP on the same application form as the normal UKFPO as this has massively increased competition with some people thinking... 'oh I'll just go it for and see what happens' with no real interest in research. More and more people are applying year after year and I'm sure many have no real academic interest - the jobs are just seen as prestigious.

I think the initial aim of the AFP was to get more people interested in a career in academic medicine - to inspire people, to give people a taster of what it's like. Now I think a lot of it is people applying because it's what people who are good enough do - which obviously deprives people who are less CV orientated in their day to day medical school life (everyone knows people in every medical school who do things purely to pad the CV without a genuine interest or passion) but are genuinely interested and excited by research. This is the system where 5 letters to the editor on Thames AFP (I didn't apply Thames) count for more points than a single, methodologically strong RCT which you yourself designed, conducted and wrote up. This is the system where people pay big money to go to a conference to stick up a poster - great if you get a bursary or funding but not everyone does and not everyone can afford it (plus, from experience, conferences accept virtually everything for posters).

A proper robust meta-analysis on a big topic may take years to complete and just the search is enough of a pain. If you've completed this and written it up, say even if you've submitted it and it's going through peer review - as long as it isn't published, it counts for nothing at all, not even as much as a published PubMed indexed letter to the editor, which is complete peanuts to produce. This is somewhat an extension of 'publish or perish' - essentially, we are rewarding quantity over quality - we are rewarding low quality but high quantity research output - papers which are completely trash and completely and utterly un-citeable. But what do you expect if you put in place a system that awards points for the sheer number of publications and presentations??

I don't think it's a problem with the AFP though - but rather academia in general - a problem I'm sure all of us will encounter in our future careers.

But good luck for cascade and I hope you get a Thames job you want

EPIC STUFF SAID HERE
But good luck for cascade and I hope you get a Thames job you want

Congratulations!

Smashed it!


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Well done dude!! This is SUCH awesome news!

PRSOM, well done buddy!

Can't believe it - got my second choice program at Newcastle! Also got an offer from Hull, but I'm pretty sure I wanna go all the way north!

Thank you! I feel very lucky!

Has anyone noticed it says 0 next to all the Thames afp jobs now.. Last night there were 21 jobs that were still vacant. Wonder whether they have released the leftover jobs though it says Wednesday on the website??

Has anyone noticed it says 0 next to all the Thames afp jobs now.. Last night there were 21 jobs that were still vacant. Wonder whether they have released the leftover jobs though it says Wednesday on the website??

Was it your first choice job?

Those 3 Academic Anaesthetics jobs are literally the only Thames AFP jobs I'm applying for next year. Is FY1 in Northwick park?

The vacancies all went to 0 last week before the first round. Don't worry.

Out of curiosity it seems as though people were either put on reserve list or they were offered a job, does anyone know if anyone was plane out rejected after the interviews?

Out of curiosity it seems as though people were either put on reserve list or they were offered a job, does anyone know if anyone was plane out rejected after the interviews?

No one gets rejected after interview until all places are filled

Also, I have rotated around all of the clinical attachments on the Academic Anaesthetics job so if you want any further information, I'm happy to provide it when you're thinking of applying. They also host one of only two ACF jobs in London in Anaesthesia.