What we are not

Over the years somehow a few people have gained the wrong impression about what we do. It is therefore perhaps worth saying a few things that we do not offer.

Not a recruitment firm or agency.

Our sole focus is to provide the individual who contacts us with objective careers support. This does not involve "getting" anyone a job. The only person who can get you a job in the end is you. We may recommend or point out some recruitment agencies and job sources but we are not affiliated in any way to any of them in financial terms.

Not an information desk

Medical Forum is not really ideal for personally asking about specific details such as Royal College exam requirements or precise guidelines on flexible training schemes - as this information is always changing and is best obtained directly from the relevant college or postgraduate deanery (see the library for links to these so that you can research such details for yourself).

We won't "tell you"

No one - including us - should ever make your career decisions for you nor tell you what you "ought" to do. We can encourage, facilitate, coach, mentor and guide - providing the sounding board, information and feedback you need to be able to make better career plans and generally think more clearly and positively about your career plus develop some different attitudes. We can work in equal partnership with you but the responsibility for your career must always remain 100% with you.

Not always the first port of call

Finally, although we regularly have people join our programmes who are in some emotional or career difficulty we are not a stress counselling or crisis centre. In such situations our service can still be used but it is best taken in conjunction with some more locally based support or intervention. If you are in doubt as to whether you need to combine any of our services with some further support you might like to try our "beat stress" e-course as this may help you to understand more about stress and career planning.

No one can be "referred" to Medical Forum

You can obtain funding to attend. You can be pointed in our direction. But over the years we have found that being formally "referred" to us is totally counterproductive and is an act that disempowers the individual attending. You are the person in control of your career and if you want independent career guidance from us - you need to get yourself into one of our memberships or programmes or workshops totally independently of what anyone else says. It is not them who joins our programme and it is not them who will do the work.

Not a quick fix

Career problems and concerns generally arise over months and usually years so they are not going to be sorted within a single phone call or by filling in a questionnaire. Most of our personalised programmes take weeks to complete and then the actions defined and agreed take weeks or months to put into place. Thus if a dilemma arises eg "should I apply for exam A or exam B and I must decide by Friday this week" no one (in our view) can advise you what to do at this short notice as what they would do might be very different to what you would like and do well at longer term. The point is that to make good career decisions and similarly to be a holistic advisor - a lot of preparation work has to be done. In crises situations such as the eg above - we would generally suggest that you simply ask as many people as possible what they would do, make a decision that you feel is best (or do neither) and then join a career guidance programme to ensure that this situation of indecision at the last minute doesn't arise again.

YOUR CAREERISOUR CAREER