Instructions
1. Take up to three options that you are
considering, and fill in with a tick where you feel the specialty
meets your own values.
An example is shown below:
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1. Doctor-Patient
relationship
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Option 1
GP
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Option 2
Paediatrics
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Option 3
Surgery
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Do you want to see patients in a community or
hospital setting?
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Do you enjoy brief encounters with patients or
providing continuity of care over long periods of time?
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Do you want to spend most of your day having
contact with patients?
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This is how someone answered the questions,
who felt they wanted to be in a hospital setting, who prefers brief
encounters with patients and who wanted to spend most of their day
with patients. This is how they feel the specialties which they
will have explored match those values. Not knowing whether or not
to tick an option may mean they will have explore that specialty a
little further.
2. Once you have gone through all the
questions, you should ‘eyeball’ the chart and see what conclusions
you reach. Counting the number of ‘ticks’ in each career option may
well be misleading, because the different factors are not
necessarily of equal importance.
3. Having done this you may discuss the chart
with significant people in your life (partner, family, close
friends) and also with your educational supervisor, or another
clinician who knows your clinical work.
N.B. Although this is a decision-making
exercise, career exploration also forms an important part of the
task. Therefore you may find it useful to talk through this
exercise with your Educational Supervisor/Tutor to check that it is
a true reflection of your perception of the specialties that you
are reviewing.
4. Of course you may want to add more options
in. You would just need to adapt the tables below.
5. After completing the exercise, the best
career decision should become clearer to you.
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1. Doctor-Patient
relationship
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Option 1
_________
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Option 2
_________
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Option 3
_________
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Do you want to see patients in a community or
hospital setting?
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Do you enjoy brief encounters with patients or
providing continuity of care over long periods of time?
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Do you want to spend most of your day having
contact with patients?
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Do you want to work with acutely ill or
chronically ill patients?
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What about the emotional landscape? (For
example, do you find it rewarding working with patients who are in
a distressed or disturbed state?)
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Do you have preferences about the ages of your
patients? And do you prefer working with individual patients, or
patients and their families?
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Do you want to contribute directly to the
treatment of patients or would you enjoy working to support the
diagnostic process (e.g. in areas such as diagnostic radiology or
pathology)?
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Would you enjoy having to use the whole of the
patient’s body (e.g. as a GP/paediatrician), or would you enjoy
becoming an expert on a specific region of the body (e.g.
opthalmology)?
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Do you enjoy performing technical diagnostic
or interventional procedures?
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2. Intellectual Matters
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Option 1
_________
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Option 2
_________
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Option 3
_________
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Of the three options, what areas of academic
work have you most enjoyed studying in your undergraduate and
postgraduate training?
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Of the three options, what medical journals
are you most drawn to reading?
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Within the BMJ, what sorts of articles tend to
attract your attention?
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What subjects have you enjoyed (or might you
enjoy in the future) carrying out research on?
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What subjects have you enjoyed (or might you
enjoy in the future) teaching to others?
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What subjects have you carried out an
audit on (or might you plan to carry out an audit in the
future?)
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3. Status
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Option 1
_________
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Option 2
_________
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Option 3
_________
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How important is it to you that you work in a
highly competitive branch of the medical profession?
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How important is status to you?
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Do you want to ensure that there are
opportunities for private practice in your chosen specialty?
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Do you want to go into a branch of medicine
where there is the potential for earning a very high salary?
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Is it important to you that you have
opportunities for participating in research?
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Are opportunities for travelling abroad with
your work important to you?
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4. Quality of life
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Option 1
_________
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Option 2
_________
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Option 3
_________
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What sort of work-life balance do you want to
have in 5-10 years’ time?
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What sort of weekly schedule would you like to
have in 5-10 years’ time?
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What, for you, are your core work values, from
which you derive most satisfaction?
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What stressful factors do you want to minimise
at work?
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Is the length of post-graduate training an
issue for you?
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5. Relationships with
colleagues
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Option 1
_________
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Option 2
_________
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Option 3
_________
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Do you want to be able to spend quite a
portion of your day working on your own?
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Do you want to be able to spend quite a
portion of your day working in teams?
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Do you enjoy working in multi-disciplinary
teams?
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Do you want to be able to develop and manage a
clinical service?
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Do you want to be able to do quite a lot of
teaching?
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Do you want to be able to carry out
research?
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N.B. This exercise has been
adapted from ROADs to Success (2010).