AdvanceMed

Tag: medical careers

  • How to Write a Medical CV Video. Medical CV Template.

    How to Write a Medical CV Video. Medical CV Template.

    We recently recorded a “how to put together a medical trainee CV video” (Resume).

    There’s tremendous interest in the topic of how to put together a medical trainee CV.  Medical students are also interested in the topic.  For many, it may be the very first time you have have to assemble a CV or resume.

    That’s why we put the call out via email and our facebook community group (lots of good stuff in there to help you with your medical career in there by the way) for folks interested in a webinar on key points for putting together a good medical trainee CV that will satisfy the needs of employers.

    So a few Mondays ago, we held a Webinar of around 40 trainees and medical students to discuss some of the key aspects of putting together your CV.

    So here it is:

    How to Put Together a Medical Trainee CV video

    This is a long video but we encourage you to watch it through entirely. By the way On Youtube, you can adjust the speed settings to listen a bit quicker if that works for you.

    A bit of a summary of what was covered in this post (all the headings here link to sections of the video if you want to fast forward):

    Overview

    Hopefully self-explanatory this gives you an overview of everything covered in this video on how to put together a Medical Trainee CV

    Why everyone says CVs are only reviewed for 6 seconds and whether you should use a photo?

    Search for more than a couple of minutes on the internet for information about CVs and you will find someone who tells you that the average first pass review for a CV is 6 seconds.  I suspect many of these folks don’t even know where that reference comes from.  Well, here it is.  The study was an eye-tracking study and whilst its got its criticism and there’s a bit of a lack of detail.  The study certainly meets face validity when you talk to people who are experienced with reviewing hundreds of CVs.  When you are reviewing applications as part of an annual medical recruitment process its not unusual to receive hundreds of CVs.  If you dig a bit further into the article, however, there’s another interesting finding.

    If you were looking for an additional reason why you should not include a photo the study provides you one.  I generally advise against photos on CVs for the following reasons.  1. Medical job applications tend to be conservative affairs.  2.  It can come across as a bit narcissistic.  3. It also removes a key opportunity to make a first impression.  If someone can see a picture of you, then they are already forming all sorts of biased opinions about you based on this photo.

    But the Ladders study adds another reason not to do it.  It distracts the attention of the reviewer from other more important information.

    2 Options for Structuring Your Medical Trainee CV

    Basically, I recommend, the following format:

    • Personal Details (include a brief qualification summary)
    • Career Goal Statement
    • Work Achievements
    • Education Achievement
    • The Rest (in whatever order represents you best)
    • Referees

    Why not Education before Work?  Because this is an employer interview and that’s what is of most interest.

    There are some circumstances where Education could or should come before Work.  This is generally when you have been educating more recently than working, for example still in Medical School or an International Medical Graduate.

    Whether to use an Employer Recommended Template or Not?

    If you look at these templates they are not overly attractive.  Filling one in will mean that yours looks like everyone else’s’.  So its hard to put together a medical trainee CV that stands out in those circumstances.  All these templates are really trying to achieve is that you provide the reviewer with a minimum amount of information.  So you can refer to them and still adopt your own style. So far, everyone I have reviewed in Australia and New Zealand is published as a guide (meaning you don’t have to use it).  Feel free to send me one that is not but so far I have looked at:

    How Talk About ‘Non-Medical’ Related Work?

    In general, its good to talk about any substantive work you have done in a previous life outside of Medicine.  Where you list this will depend on other work history and education and how much of a strength you feel this is. You can also cross-reference some things in other headings like Skills or even the career goal statement.  For example, if you were previously an Executive Assistant then you have definitely done a job in the past that required high level organisational, time management, stakeholder management and communication skills.

    The Importance of Career Goal Statements

    I could go on about the importance of these and in fact, have done so in another post and video

    Talking About Work Achievements

    Try to give some evidence for what you have achieved in your past roles.  Avoid listing common job responsibilities this will bore a CV reviewer.  They already know what OR at least think they know what an Intern does on a day to day basis.

    A Brief Discussion on Referees

    In summary:

    • Don’t fret about getting more than one College referee
    • Try to have a diverse mix (think about including at least one non-doctor and at least one male and female)
    • Make sure your first referee is a recent manager or supervisor

    Exactly How Many Referees should I have?

    3 is good.  But remember they will be contacted in the order you put them.  And the 3rd is only normally contacted as a back-up if one of the other two goes missing.

    You can have more. But probably more than 5 or 6 is starting to look excessive.

    Some Other Tips on Improving Your CV

    The biggest take-home message here is.  GET SOMEONE ELSE TO REVIEW YOUR CV FOR YOU.  Attention to detail in CVs is important.  You have probably spent a few hours putting it together and revising it.  You will probably now be overlooking a typo or formatting error.

    Audience Q&A:

    The Audience Q&A included a discussion about Cover Letters and Personal Statements.  For Personal Statements, I generally recommend a Career Goal Statement instead.  I will at some point try to write a post or do a video on Cover Letters.

    A Quick Reminder about the YouTube Channel

    I’ve decided to start a Youtube Channel.  I really would like to share with a wider audience some of the knowledge that I have gained over several years doing jobs in Medicine that I really love. But let’s face it most other doctors really hate.  I’m talking about things like medical manager roles, executive leadership roles, recruitment roles, coaching roles, committee roles and clinician engagement roles.  So some of the stuff I know is fairly unique.  I also have a network of peers that could contribute useful information in the broad are of doctors careers.

    So I’ve started out vlogging on a couple of topics.

    One is about the idea that if senior doctors could become better bosses (people managers). And if trainees could understand that being a boss is quite difficult at times.  Then we might have a positive impact on the culture of medicine.

    The other topic.  Quite relevant at this point in time.  Is the one we have been talking about.  The job application and interview preparation process.

    My current goal is 100 subscribers by the end of July.  As of the time of writing this post I was sitting at 40.  Why 100?  Well, that’s the magic number at which point Youtube lets you have your own custom channel name.

    So if you feel inclined you could really help me out by doing any or all of the following (none of which will take up more than a small amount of your time):

  • How Do You Deal with a Difficult Boss in Medicine?

    How Do You Deal with a Difficult Boss in Medicine?

    Those who know me know that I am a big fan of Robert Sutton‘s classic book on Workplace Civility (The No Asshole Rule).  In this book Sutton demonstrates how one bad egg can have such a devastating effect on workplace culture and harmony.   Including, yes you guessed it! Hospitals, where the difficult boss in medicine can and does exist.

    That book dealt mainly with how organizations can detect if they have an asshole problem and how to deal with it if they found one. On its tenth anniversary, Sutton has published a follow (The Asshole Survival Guide) which is more of a personal help aid if you encounter a jerk in your workplace.

    The main purpose of this post is not, however, about Assholes in Medicine.  Its about that Difficult Boss in Medicine.  The Consultant or Trainee who sometimes might be temporarily labelled an asshole (sometimes even fairly) for some of the things they do or don’t do. The folks who are not deliberately trying to up set others and who are generally well-meaning.  These types of Bosses are much more common than the true workplace asshole but can still create grief and concern for those who work with them.

     

    Bosses shape how people spend their days and whether they experience joy or despair, perform well or badly, or are healthy or sick.  Unfortunately, there are hoards of mediocre and downright rotten bosses out there, and big gaps between the best and the worst.

    Robert Sutton – Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to be the Best…and Learn from the Worst.

     

     

    Is the Difficult Boss in Medicine a real problem?

     

    I think the majority of medical trainees would answer yes to this question.  In my own research 17-20% of medical trainees reported bullying and sexual harassment in the last year, with 60% of this coming from senior medical staff[1].  And of course bullying and sexual harassment is at the extreme end of difficult or bad bossness!

    Perhaps part of the problem is who is a boss in Medicine?  Registrars or Trainee tend to refer to their Consultant as “their boss”.  Interns and Residents do as well, but then report on a daily matter to their Registrar.  Very few of these Consultants or Registrars however have the title Manager or Director or something equivalent.  So we have lots of bosses but most of them are not formal bosses.  And many Consultants also speak openly about not wanting to be a boss.

    I think that’s a real problem.  CanMEDS has recognized that at the core of every good medical practitioner is the need to develop a level of Leadership and Management capability, along with other useful “boss skills” such as Professionalism and Communication.  Colleges have started to pick up on this in training but sadly a focus n Leadership and Management skills still tends to come late in the curriculum.

    When I talk to Advanced Trainees about their worries about transitioning to the Consultant level they tell me that they are not concerned about how to handle clinical problems as a boss, they are concerned about how to handle management problems (mostly people management).

    So if we are not adequately preparing doctors for becoming a boss and have systems where nearly everyone becomes a boss at some point is it such a surprise that many are on what Sutton call the “mediocre to rotten” end of the spectrum?

     

    So how many Types of Difficult Bosses in Medicine are out there?

     

    The short answer is too many to describe in a blog post.

    The longer answer is that not all Bosses are the same to all medical trainees.

    An example of this is what I call the “Micromanager Boss“.

    The Micromanager is concerned about avoiding risks and problems with their patients.  They tend to have problems trusting others to ensure that what needs to be done is done (problems with delegating).  They can be a great source of frustration for an experienced trainee as, despite your best effort, the Micromanager always seems to be wanting you to check or confirm something.

    For an experienced trainee a Micromanager becomes a headache and you may start to resent their presence as an annoyance on the Ward.  But consider this.  What if you are an Intern who hasn’t reached that level of feeling experienced enough to know what to do?  All of a sudden the Micromanage Boss becomes the Caring and Nurturing Boss.  The Boss who goes the extra mile to make sure you have covered all the things that need to be done for the patient.

     

    First seek understanding.

     

    The point here is that in order to understand the Difficult Boss Problem you both need to understand yourself and your needs as a trainee.  Try to understand the perspective of the Boss at question.  If possible own your Difficult Boss in Medicine problem.

    In our example above it may very well be that our boss has had some very bad outcomes in past.  This may have been through a failure to check certain things with patients.  OR perhaps under pressure from their own bosses to ensure that some things are done in a certain way?

    So one strategy for overcoming your difficulties with your boss might be to seek further information about the source of the insecurities.  Perhaps you can engage with them directly.  Perhaps a previous trainee or one of the experienced nursing staff can shed some insight.  If you can learn about what makes your Boss anxious you can take steps to reduce this.  For example, by presenting them with a personal report each day showing how you have checked all these important things.  Show them you have their back!

     

     

    A couple of other examples of  Difficult Bosses in Medicine, including possible reasons and how to own the problem:

    The not so helpful boss.

    Presentation:

    This is the Boss that believes in old school teaching, likes to put you on the spot in the middle of the Ward round and quiz you on the 31 causes of hypertension.

    Possible Reason:

    This Boss may be very keen to teach and believe what they are doing is helpful.  They may never have been taken aside and told that their teaching approach is no longer considered the best.

    How to own it:

    May be a difficult one to tackle front on.  But perhaps if you are more observing this Boss interrogating another colleague you may feel able to take them aside for a private conversation.  Otherwise, it might be useful to share with your Boss what you are currently studying and suggest that they could help you to focus on learning this (rather than anything that just happens to come up on the Ward Round).

     

    The too nice boss.

    Presentation:

    This is the Boss who says yes to anything anyone, staff and patients because they seemingly “don’t want to upset anyone”.  They leave you frustrated because a lot of those “yesses” mean you have to do extra things.  Like an extra day on take, reorganizing a theatre list, or negotiating with a frustrated secretary about cramming extra time into an outpatient clinic.

    Possible Reason:

    Your Boss may be very new to the role and unsure of themselves.  They may be wary of establishing credibility with their peers before saying no to things.

    How to own it:

    Such a Boss may be very receptive to a friendly empathic conversation about feeling new and unsure.  Make it clear that you are happy to support more firm decisions when they are needed.  But also make clear what you need to get your job done and what you may need from a boss.  If possible see if there is another person around who can help with these but make sure that your Boss knows about this.

     

    How to not become a Difficult Boss yourself.

    Its never too late to avoid becoming known as one of those Difficult Bosses in Medicine.  Of course you can learn the science and art of Management in Medicine by enrolling in a University Management training degrees.  But there may be something a little shorter on offer at your local hospital.  To be perfectly honest they are more likely to tackle the issues of how to be a good boss to your team members than any Masters degree course will.

     

    Seek Feedback.

     

    An even better start is to think about how well you are currently receiving feedback on your style as a leader and manager from those who report to you.  Do you encourage feedback?  Are you regularly receiving feedback?  Is it the type of frank and fearless feedback that really opens your eyes to the need to change something you are doing?

    We are generally very bad at evaluating our own performance.  So its well worth considering formalizing feedback every few years by engaging in a 360 feedback process.  Done well this process will normally give you one or two key areas for improvement as a people manager so you can avoid those below seeing you as “Difficult”.

     

    Want to hear more about how to deal with a Difficult Boss in Medicine?

    I’m giving a talk on the subject at the upcoming onthewards & Beyond Conference in Sydney on the 14th April 2018.

     

     

    Llewellyn Anthony, Karageorge Aspasia, Nash Louise, Li Wenlong, Neuen Dennis (2018) Bullying and sexual harassment of junior doctors in New South Wales, Australia: rate and reporting outcomes. Australian Health Review, .https://doi.org/10.1071/AH17224

  • 5 Tips to Get You Prepared for the Annual Medical Recruitment Process

    5 Tips to Get You Prepared for the Annual Medical Recruitment Process

    So you have settled into your new year at work.  For some, this means the excitement of finally making it to an internship is still there.  At least to some extent.  For others, it’s the relief of having conquered that first year.  Now being able to officially call yourself a Resident (apologies for use of NSW-centric terminology throughout this post).  But your attention has already turned to that next hurdle in your career. Well, I’m guessing it has otherwise you probably would not be reading this post).  We commonly refer to this hurdle as the JMO annual medical recruitment process.

    Like every other hurdle in Medicine, the process can initially seem a bit daunting and unclear.  But with a bit of planning of your time and seeking help, there are lots that you can do to ease the anxiety and maximise your chances of success.

    You can Prepare for the JMO Annual Medical Recruitment Process with our Top 5 Tips

    1. Work Out What Your Ideal Next Job Is (and then work out a fallback job)

    In any goal setting its important to define early on What Does Success Looks Like?  Its hard to put in place any reasonable plan without having a final objective in mind.

    For those familiar with SMART Goals it’s important that we define something Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound.  We won’t go over these 5 components in too much detail here.  Measurable, relevant and time-bound are generally self-explanatory and established in the JMO Annual Medical Recruitment process in Australia and New Zealand.

    Specific and Achievable are where you should focus your efforts.  Many trainee doctors already have a fairly specific first preference job in mind.  This is usually either to gain access to a basic specialty training program where the role is fairly broadly defined, or if you are further down the track a more defined Advanced Training position.  (If you are still uncertain at this point, then that’s ok by the way.  We will talk about what you can do to be more specific shortly).

    If you do know already what your Ideal Next Job is.  Ask yourself is this really achievable?  Or to be more precise what if for some unforeseen reason it just doesn’t work out?  Maybe your first choice is highly competitive or maybe you perform badly at interviews.

    Have a Plan B

    It’s important to have a backup or Plan B.  So as an example let’s take Adult Basic Physician Training.

    Your Goal might be stated like this

    To secure a new contract by the end of this year to work  in the area of Adult Internal Medicine either as a Basic Trainee or in an unaccredited SRMO role, so that I can continue to learn in this area that is of most relevance to me.

    If you are uncertain about your Ideal Next Job or your Plan B, browse the JMO annual medical recruitment sites to see what sort of positions have been on offer in past years.  This will give you a better idea of what is available.

    2. Plan Your Time Wisely in the lead up to JMO Annual Medical Recruitment

    Now that we have our Goal we can make a plan and the first thing to do is work out how much time you have so you can prioritize and allocate your time appropriately.

    Again a good starting point is to review the JMO annual medical recruitment websites for the positions you intend to apply for.  In most jurisdictions or regions there will be some sort of jurisdiction-wide site through which trainees put in their application for jobs for the following year.

    Here are a couple of examples:

    NSWHealth

    Canterbury District Health Board

    Look at these sites.  In most cases, there is one date by which you must submit your application.  Mark this down this is your first hard deadline from which you need to work backwards to ensure that you have everything you need (particularly a CV, Letter of Application and Referees).  You probably need to aim to fit in pre-interviews or pre-meets before this date as well as there is usually not much time (or availability) to meet with a Director of Training once applications close.

    The other dates you are looking for are the interview dates for the jobs you are applying for.  They may not be well advertised so you may need to make some inquiries.  These are also crucial as you will need to plan to take some leave from service to attend and you need to fit your interview practice in before these dates.

    3. Work Out Who You Would Like to Ask to be a Referee

    It seems obvious but we see so many medical trainees scramble to obtain referees at the last minute.  You can help yourself out now by dropping an email or making a quick phone call to those people you have recently worked with or for.

    Interns may not have had much contact so you are probably limited to a few key staff that you have worked with.  For Residents, you probably have a few more choices.

    You should try and line up at least 4 referees.  These don’t need to all be a Fellow of the College you are aiming for.  Other Fellows, Senior Trainees, Nurse Unit Managers, Senior Allied Health Staff are all good people to approach as a referee.  Having a diverse range of referees on your CV looks better to most CV reviewers than a homogeneous mix of College Fellows.

    At this point, you don’t need them to write you a reference (in a lot of cases they get emailed a form to fill out).  Just make sure they will be happy when the time comes and check their contact details.  If possible get a mobile number to put down.  This makes it easier for anyone who wants to take a verbal reference.

    4. Start Writing Or Revising Your CV

    A good CV should always be tailored to the role you are applying for.  This normally takes some time and several revisions to get right.  You should also factor in time for someone else to proofread it for you and give you feedback.  It’s likely that the CV you currently have will not be appropriate and need significant reshaping.  Allow some time for this important task.  Start thinking about what your Career Goal Statement looks like.

    5. Start to Practice Talking About Yourself and Your Achievements

    Start to think of the Interview as a form of high-stakes Viva Examination.  Did you practice for these in medical school right?  Well, you need to practice for the interview as well.  There are lots of approaches to doing this.  A good first step is to start thinking about your work and educational achievements.  Think about how you can weave these into answers to interview questions.  Many of us don’t normally like to “talk ourselves up”.  So practising this activity makes sense and will help it come across as more authentic at the interview if you do.

    Image Credit: janjf3 @ Pixabay