GP Selection Centre

From F1 to F2 to Specialty Applications and Selection Centres. A cycle that is repeated over and over and the Selection Centres in particular are rather extraordinary to observe.

We take-over half a hotel for a full week. Beds are removed from rooms which then serve as consulting rooms with a single desk, two chairs and a scenario to read. The Assessor sits in one corner, the Observer sits in the other (I'm the Observer).

My boss and four external facilitators are observing other specialties at other Centres, the information we glean from today will be shared with F2 trainees at our Career Workshops in order to better prepare them.

In the corridor the trainee doctors sit on a chair outside each room, a whistle blows and they enter the room, as they do so actors appear and sit on the chairs. The trainees read the scenario and then fetch their "patient". They have a total of ten minutes to establish the issue and offer solutions before the whistle blows again.

This is repeated with three different simulations one after another as the trainees rotate around the corridors. There are three cohorts each morning and the timetable runs with military precision.

When the offers are made the trainees have 48 hours to accept or decline.