Giving career guidance to others

There are many doctors with formal roles providing career guidance such as deans, clinical tutors, supervisors, GP trainers, college tutors, directors of medical education, lead educators, foundation programme directors, foundation careers advisers etc. However all doctors have some responsibility for being able to support colleagues and juniors through periods of career doubt or indecision.

Even PRHOs and medical students may be approached by students and prospective students for advice on what speciality to follow or whether to do medicine. Career guidance skills thus need to be integrated throughout the whole medical curriculum and not considered a skill one suddenly has to be on top of once at a senior position. In addition - by providing information about what good career guidance actually looks like not only will those seeking it be in a better position to assess its quality but they are more likely to apply the principles in their own career.

Modernising Medical Careers

This process - now well underway - calls for the introduction of "rigorous counselling and career advice" during the F1/F2 years.

Given that there is not the manpower (nor we think the budgets or resources in place) to provide intensive career counselling and there has been little cohesive training available for those providing career guidance (see our report "Career Guidance Essentials - but not THAT essential?" - the practical answer most likely centres around two approaches

A) a facilitation and empowerment process of individuals' career management skills.

There is a need for the provider to learn how to empower the individual to take charge of their own career planning and research rather than attempt to fix or spoon feed. Dame Leslie Southgate said at a recent career conference run by ASME "we are not their Mummies and Daddies" and in December 05 at an IWL conference one speaker inferred "doctors need to be adults about their careers - not children". Any expectation of being handed a career on a plate needs to be dispelled as early as possible in medical training as career planning and fashioning the right career for one's particular blend of skills, values and personality - is not a passive activity.

B) The numbers of personnel with basic skills in career guidance needs to increase

A fast track method of increasing the general level of career guidance skills in supervisors is needed and the whole concept of medical career guidance must go higher up the list of priorities (see our report - delegating and elevating career guidance). There will also need to be an increase in those with specialist "diagnostic" career guidance skills for those juniors who are underperforming or refractory to basic career guidance techniques applied.

Medical Forum offers a number of ways to tackle the career guidance challenges of MMC and F1F2 years....

providing innovative training materials for both the user and provider of career guidance services that can fast track individuals to a good understanding of career guidance
(these include a range of short but effective courses - distance, self directed, workshops or presentation packs - which are based on our fifteen years of working solely in the field of career guidance. Some of these can be made available on unlimited reproduction basis for Trusts or PGCs (see license)
resources on the web site for individuals to encourage self exploration and raised awareness of what one is, has (in terms of skils) and wants (from a career and life in general)

To assist you in giving careers support to others we have a range of integrated training and learning materials relating to career guidance and career planning

Workshops

We have a wide range of workshop and talk titles.Each of the following is a one day workshop. Please use the email form at the bottom of this page to enquire about the full programmes as these change regularly and can be tailored to specific local needs.

Career guidance - skills, delivery and challenges
Setting up and promoting a PGC based career service without being swamped!
Getting the best from the licensed materials

These workshops are predominantly convened in a specific location or region by eg a deanery. However we also run "open" events when anyone can attend. If you register as a tutor club member you will receive our newsletter which will mention open events.

Self directed materials on license - the Career Guidance Essentials Toolkit

This is for organisations (see memberships) who wish to make our materials available to all juniors in their employ.

The advantages of using our materials include

* standardised approach leading to less confusing terminology

* integrated learning and training materials (eg the self directed materials convert to distance learning which in turn links in with the powerpoint presentation available for Tutors to use as a framework for career guidance group sessions)

* raises people's awareness of our specialist career guidance programmes which may be applicable where in-house career guidance is not resolving an issue

* we monitor through feedback mechanisms - how the materials are being used and can thus make continuous improvements

The items currently available on the license (although we will be adding to these each year) include (all in pdf format)

The material is a range of integrated items which focus both provider and seeker of career guidance so that both can do their part more effectively. The workbooks are self directed distance learning training pack with integrated and complimenting "personal" and "tutor" versions . An upgrade to a CPD version (2 hours) is possible for tutors as additional cost.

1 Career Guidance Essentials - tutor (workbook)

2 Career Guidance Essentials - personal (workbook)

3 Powerpoint downloads (titles include Interview Wizardry, Career planning support 1+2, Your career is YOURS)

4 Tutor club

All the tutor club facilties become available to anyone being an active user of the Career Guidance Essentials materials (active meaning responding to the feedback forms at the end of the workbook or offering constructive feedback on the powerpoint pdfs so that the material becomes progressively updated and improved rather that remaining static. This enables us to ensure the materials we offer remain relevant and appropriate to current medical education challenges in career guidance)

The items in the toolkit will be added to over time and are available on unlimited copy/ download license (cost depends on the number of sites and on the items included in the license but an example would be a deanery responsible for 19 Trust hospitals taking a twenty site license at Ł500 per site - depending on the range of downloadable materials). For a single site - the cost would be higher.