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This talk to medical students (a mixed group of year 2,3,4 and 5) and the feedback forms collated revealed a significant unmet need for careers guidance and career decision making support. The comments from the students (which have been grouped into the four main questions asked of them - usefulness of the talk, speaker quality, presentation in general, best bit) after the talk via a feedback questionnaire makes interesting reading.
The talk was attended by students from the second year to the fifth year. Their comments were as follows.... (all comments received were included below)
Usefulness:
Interesting to see alternatives
Good - didn't know Medical Forum existed
Information about what careers help is available
Very
It was very useful as it provided information on where to get guidance/advice
Extremely
Very useful - did not know this service existed before today. It is good to know that there is someone available to talk to about careers
Good to hear from a new perspective
Certainly helps to focus and re-assess the career I wanted
Gave a good insight to services available and reassuring that you can change route and don't have to plan it all now
Good place to start my own personal careers research
The whole year (3rd) should have this talk
Helped to open my mind about careers
Good to find out what to do for careers advice
Very useful - we haven't had any input so far about career choices (5th year!)
Very refreshing to listen to someone talking about medical careers outside traditional medicine
Very thought provoking
Very useful as I'm pretty unclear about what I want to do/where I am going with medicine and we don't really get any guidance on where we can get information on this
Hadn't heard of Medical Forum before which is a bit sad considering my career situation and the lack of careers advice given at medical school
Good but longish (MF: Clearly the attention span of students is not one hour - though whose is? even though there was good time for questions - means they need more interactive elements)
Got me aware about what I must think about in terms of choosing a career Very - feel a bit lost and overwhelmed about choosing a career route - this session helped
Definitely - made the day worthwhile. Needed to hear that we don't all need to be traditional in our medical careers
Very useful - possibly changed my whole life as a doctor
Mind broadening and liberating
Extremely useful and has come at the right time because up until now there has been nothing
Didn't know the organisation existed - and the 80 specialties!
I have a better idea about what I should be doing to help formulate my career aspirations
Quality of speaker
Good with clear and useful visual aids
Gave good indication of how to start thinking about careers and where to find out more
Thought provoking and educational
Very good communicator, entertaining, easy to listen to Excellent
Good ,enthusiastic, knowledgeable, down to earth and seemed to care
Very good and open to questions and willing to discuss points brought up
Excellent
Very good, helpful and comprehensive. Inspiring!!
Good - but more practical advice might help (well we only had an hour)
Interesting and amusing - well presented
Very influential
Excellent, inspiring and reassuring
Brilliant
Very good - can tell she wants to help and change things
Very good - especially since she had been through it herself and obviously knew what we were going through
Presentation in general:
A little long (MF: again - but different student!)
Thought provoking
Great
Well done
Made you think
Inspirational
Very clear, interesting and helpful
Very clear and inspiring
Excellent
Very good - made me realise that there is a lot to think about in planning a career definitely needed in EACH clinical year
Very thought provoking
Best bit?
Information about the web site
Highlights the lack of career guidance we are given at medical school
No longer feeling like the only one who doesn't know what medical career to go into
Question time
Seeing the different factors that influence career choice and the options for diversity
Letting me know I am not alone in not having a clue what I want to do
Awareness of possibilities
All good
Examples of less traditional medical careers
Opportunity to respond to some of the things said and some thought provoking ideas
Whole session very useful
Please speak to the dean for changes for the better
Making me think about what career will suit me best
Information about the services
Finding out that there are services available to me which I didn't know about
Its good to know there are lots of options
Just knowing of the Forum's existence
Increasing awareness of this service and all the careers available to us
Explanation of what the options are
The existence of Medical Forum
Ways of organising how to make a choice
Medical Forum's conclusions from this event.
The talk was delivered to groups of about 12 -15 (approximately 40 in total). Although this might be the ideal number for generating a relaxed and interactive careers discussion workshop - the need to reach larger numbers of students with this sort of information and inspiration is also paramount.
My suggestions following this event in terms of how Medical Forum can develop the provision of careers guidance within medical schools are as follows
- this type of talk could be given to a whole year (attached to an event that was mandatory or that has high attendance)
- followed immediately (perhaps same afternoon) by several facilitated workshops of no more than 10
- a weekly "teleclinic" or email option for students to contact
- recorded talks or training materials available to students in the library (? Via the web)
- a powerpoint training presentation available in the library based on the talk given in case anyone has missed it or wishes to refer back to it
- an appointed person as "careers adviser" (like to be a medic)
- medical school "organisational membership" of Medical Forum
Consultancy support
It is hard for a medical school with tight budgets to suddenly allocate a signifant fund to the issue of careers guidance.
Any person taking on an in-house career guidance role would probably have to be a relatively senior member of staff as well as someone who had considerably knowledge of a very wide range of career options as well as administrative support and being managed/directed. Confidentiality may be an issue
Quality careers support services can not be provided on a shoe string and requires proper funding and allocating of budgets according to clearly stated needs from the students.
The discussion with the students revealed that they all came to the point of being concerned about career issues at different times - thus it is not necessary to supply all students with the same level of career guidance support at any one time. An open access system that is available throughout the course but which is channeled through a formal careers lecture or careers afternoon - say in year two or three seems most appropriate. The service needs also to be promoted proactively and continuously.
In summary - there are many cost effective ways in which the provision of careers guidance can be improved to medical students. With the low morale amongst the profession as a whole these days and the plethora of career directions that are possible as well as the varied ways of achieving individual career satisfaction - there is a need for the medical schools to realise that they have a responsibility for not only training medical students to be doctors but for providing them with the skills and motivations they will need to handle and sustain a career in medicine throughout a lifetime. "Career management skills", career "attitudes" and how to access careers information do not seem to be currently well if at all covered in the syllabus. | 
