Public Health ST1 Programme 2025 Entry

Mine has gone from shortlisted reserve to interview ??

Hi all, just wanted to contribute to the debate on medical/non-medical entry. I am a current registrar and I think there are a few of us who 'lurk' here, not to police debate topics - but because it is helpful to share experiences when relevant, and to contact incoming trainees as there is usually a lengthy delay between allocation and incoming trainees being connected to regional networks, so it is helpful to round those up that we find.
It is worth bearing in mind that the decision to allow entry to PH training to trainees from backgrounds other than medicine was not only driven initially by low medical applications - it was also driven by the recognition that public health is an extremely broad field with many highly specialist areas within it, and so increasing applicant diversity is of huge benefit to the profession as a whole. It provides a standardised training route to seniority for everyone regardless of whether they are a generalist wanting career progression or a specialist wanting to gain broader skills, including doctors.
For example, there are distinct fields in health economics, public health policy, healthcare public health, health promotion programmes, epidemiology, research, ethics, health protection and variants within, and emergency response. It would not be practical or feasible to offer several different training programmes for all of those topics or backgrounds and if there were a training scheme split between doctors and non-doctors there would need to be a division of topics or placement locations which would not be of benefit to anyone, including doctors.
I also wanted to note that public health generally is a competitive field and there are more applicants than jobs regardless of background or specialism. You can see this particularly acutely for jobs in global public health and the numbers of graduates from MPH programmes each year who do not secure graduate-level employment and the numbers who work unpaid to secure roles.
I say this to try and reassure doctors that there is not a thriving job market and career progression for non-doctors that they are excluded from, and doctors can also of course apply to public health roles. The portfolio route is not a credible pathway for most people, even very experienced professionals, as it offers no actual training and requires evidence of the same learning objectives regarding health protection - and placements in health protection teams outside of protected training are very, very hard to negotiate for lots of boring reasons I won't go into! And this is just one reason why portfolio registration is not a strong alternative.
Someone mentioned doctors also bringing diversity - yes, absolutely, there are a number of doctors on the scheme from other specialty backgrounds bringing topic diversity, where non-medical applicants tend to bring more skill diversity. It should be noted though that just as there are other jobs for non-medical public health professionals (and medical.. you can apply for them!) there are lots of doctors who are consultants in other specialties that still work in public health, so you also have other options to reach public health roles (though I of course think there should be more training places available).
The FPH published reports previously that are interesting regarding the proportions of applicants and successful entry to the scheme. My understanding (though anyone interested will want to fact check this) is that the proportional split was fairly constant for a long time and in recent years has swung with a large increase in number of medical applicants. This might be due to the COVID effect or more doctors wanting non-clinical careers, but regardless, the increase in competition is driven by more medical applicants rather than non-medical. I wonder if the new dual training route will ease some pressure in the long run as places increase? I would say, anecdotally, that there are relatively few non-medical registrars with very senior experience and they are balanced by the number of medical trainees who have already CCTd in another specialty.
In summary, these arrangements have been in place for a long time, are not contentious, and instead, actively celebrated within public health. I understand that wider debate and concerns about scope creep, role expansion, and huge competition ratios across training and potential forced unemployment will come into play for people here. It is frustrating and upsetting that the recruitment process continues to be disorganised and that good candidates from all backgrounds don't get a chance to shine at interview despite passing the test thresholds.
However, I would urge everyone not to fight between professional groups - the training scheme placements feel very much like a non-medical graduate scheme that doctors get accelerated entry into, rather than a medical training programme that non-medics can access, and any differences tend to balance out after ST2. If you find the idea of training in a role where being a doctor confers no obvious advantage or authority and where many of your colleagues with the same level of authority are not doctors, then public health training possibly isn't a good idea and a specialty that offers public health roles in the future (e.g. infectious disease/micro/paed/GP/O+G) might be a better fit - I know a couple of doctors who dropped out to pursue these specialties as they missed clinical work and they are all happier than they were on the scheme.
Good luck to all those preparing for assessment and for those preparing to apply again. Public health training is fantastically diverse and offers much more flexibility than a lot of other medical specialties to explore your interests so I hope you all get to where you want to be eventually!

Just got an eamil ranking the shortlist reserve candidates - looks like there are 431 people on the reserve list! I'm still awaiting my shortlist reserve rank though! Anyone else had theirs?

Just got an eamil ranking the shortlist reserve candidates - looks like there are 431 people on the reserve list! I'm still awaiting my shortlist reserve rank though! Anyone else had theirs?

Just got an eamil ranking the shortlist reserve candidates - looks like there are 431 people on the reserve list! I'm still awaiting my shortlist reserve rank though! Anyone else had theirs?

Just got an eamil ranking the shortlist reserve candidates - looks like there are 431 people on the reserve list! I'm still awaiting my shortlist reserve rank though! Anyone else had theirs?

Hey thank you for this. Would you mind sharing your perspective of the jobs market post CCT in PH. You mentioned the below which I was a bit confused by:
"I say this to try and reassure doctors that there is not a thriving job market and career progression for non-doctors that they are excluded from, and doctors can also of course apply to public health roles."
I understand most post CCT will be working in LA. Do you mean jobs outside LA work are hard to come by?
Thanks for the help

Hey everyone
As a shortlist reserve with no chance to get interview, I want to take this opportunity to learn from those who got through or are already in training.
I would really appreciate if you take the time to reply to some or any of these queries,
1) How did you prepare for the assessment center, what resources (apart from JTP), how long ago did you start preparing, what do you think helped u succeed?
2) How do you plan on preparing for selection center?
3) I've heard there are some preparatory groups for assessment center, If anyone has any contact of such, please do let me know in a reply.
4) What do you think should my strategy be to prepare better for next year?

Hey everyone
As a shortlist reserve with no chance to get interview, I want to take this opportunity to learn from those who got through or are already in training.
I would really appreciate if you take the time to reply to some or any of these queries,
1) How did you prepare for the assessment center, what resources (apart from JTP), how long ago did you start preparing, what do you think helped u succeed?
2) How do you plan on preparing for selection center?
3) I've heard there are some preparatory groups for assessment center, If anyone has any contact of such, please do let me know in a reply.
4) What do you think should my strategy be to prepare better for next year?

I'm a current trainee, medic by trade and I do want to throw in my two cents on the assessment centre question.
I looked at the free example questions available online and made a judgement call on what I would need to do to pass. I felt JTP was cost prohibitive considering I was unlikely to get in and chose not to purchase it. After I did the free example questions I decided it was probably safe to just go for it and did so on the day. At the time I did not know anyone in public health and I did not know these threads existed. I think if I had known I probably would have been psyched out by what everyone has been doing for these assessment centres. You have got to do what works for you, and drilling qus doesn't do it for some people. Consider what you are actually being asked on these exams, figure out what you are weak on and work on it. These are aptitude tests - they look at potential and so you really don't need any knowledge to do it, as they only assess how strong your raw analytical and judgement skills are. And you have to be fast.
My point is: don't overthink it. When I did the WG I didn't even know there were different question types, which meant when I was in it, I read the question carefully and didn't presume anything.
In general we need to remember that though this test is not particulary reflective of real life practice, it's a urdle to get over. So think about what it is good at testing. It tries to test how you process information under pressure. The SJT tries to see how you collaborate, lead, act and solve problems at work. So don't do questions for the sake of it, make your revision purposeful and make it match your needs instead of handing JTP ££££
My honest predication is that no one will follow this advice because everyone just wants to know what resources there are, and the truth is, your best resource is the ability to self reflect on your own weaknesses.

Hi all, similar to the poster above, would love some advice from anyone about how best to prepare for interview as have never done it before.
I’m on a long day the day before the interview and wondering how long others have spent preparing the day before with the information we’re given and if it will be possible to do this after a long shift.