As September rolls around, many of you are gearing towards your Obs and Gynae ST1 speciality interview for the February intake. If you have been called for an interview, congrats!
That is half the struggle after all.
Now it's only a few weeks of prep and you are looking at starting your journey in the specialty of your choice. Having been in your place not too long ago, I know what that's like.
If you are looking for guidance on how and where to start, you’re in the right place, so let's dive right in.
Key Resources
- Oriel User Guide
- ST1 Obstetrics & Gynaecology Person Specification and Entry Criteria 2024
- ST1 Obstetrics & Gynaecology Applicant's Guide 2024
- O&G Core Curriculum 2024
Obs & Gynae ST1 Recruitment Timeline
Check the schedule for crucial dates during the selection process on the recruitment timetable.
February 2025 Start Date (Round 3)
| Applications open | Tuesday 23rd July 2024 at 10am |
| Applications close | Tuesday 13th August 2024 at 4pm |
| Invitation to MSRA | By Thursday 22nd August 2024 |
| MSRA Exam | Friday 6th - 13th September 2024 |
| Interviews | Wednesday 9th October 2024 |
| Initial Offers out | By Tuesday 22nd October 2024 by 5pm |
| Post start date | January - March 2025 |
August 2025 Start Date (Round 1)
| Applications open | Thursday 24th October 2024 at 10am |
| Applications close | Thursday 21st November 2024 at 4pm |
| Invitation to MSRA | By Thursday 22nd August 2024 |
| MSRA Exam | TBA |
| Interviews | TBA - Sometime between 2nd January & 21st March 2025 |
| Initial Offers out | By Tuesday 25th March 2025 by 5pm |
| Post start date | Wednesday 6th August 2025 |
Interview Format
The interview has been entirely online for the past several years.
The interview conducted by HEE is around 25-30 minutes and consists of 2 main parts.
An initial waiting room where you will be greeted, and your ID (passport) checked. You will also be asked to show your room and surroundings, so ensure you're in an appropriate place and make sure no secret consultant is hiding somewhere in your room.
The proper interview where you will be asked questions in two stations - Clinical prioritisation station and Structured interview station. Each carries equal score weightage.
Bonus Section
Secret third part: during this interview you are also assessed for your communication skills and this will reflect in your Global Performance Score, although it does not have a dedicated station.
Interview Time Division as per HEE (subject to change)
| Stage | Time |
|---|---|
| Waiting room before interview | 5 minutes |
| Identification check | 1 minute |
| Clinical prioritisation reading time | 5 minutes |
| Clinical prioritisation question | 6 minutes |
| Structure interview questions | 9 minutes |
| General amount of time in interview | 25 - 30 minutes |
Station A. Clinical Prioritisation
These are questions that you would be expected to know as an F2 and don’t require in-depth speciality knowledge.
They test your ability to recognise and prioritise the unwell patients and also test you to see if you know how to allocate your resources (like your F1 or the nurse in the ward). They also test whether you know when to escalate and there might even be an ethical concern in one of the cases; essentially they want to see if you are a safe doctor.
You will be given a scenario where:
- You are the on-call SHO in a hospital
- You receive four different calls regarding patients with varying urgency including their observations
- You have a team - this may be an F1 and/or registrars of different specialities.
You are given 5 minutes to read this and prepare.
This is followed by 6 minutes to address the question.
In the 5 minutes, you have to prepare the order of prioritisation order- you can just read out the order as the number or alphabet in the initial question (for example: My priority order would be B, D, C, A) followed by a breakdown of management for each case.
The top priority scenario is worth 12 marks, the second and third are worth 8 marks and the last scenario is worth 4 marks so divide your time accordingly.
Advice & Tips
- Tip #1: Always have a paper and pen set aside before the interview starts.
You are allowed to have this during your clinical prioritisation. After 5 minutes of reading time, the questions may not be visible during the question.
- Tip #2: In your prep time, write down your thoughts.
Try to get down the order of prioritisation, the diagnoses, the differentials if any, brief further investigations, brief further management, and escalation or team involvement (if any).
In your 6-minute discussion, you will most likely be met with silence on the interviewers' part other than the occasional encouragement or clarification, so prepare your entire answer to fit the 6 minutes.
I will link some amazing books and sites that helped me prepare for this down below.
Example Clinical Prioritisation Question
Here’s an example of what a Clinical prioritization question may look like:
You are an F2 on-call overnight in a DGH and you receive the following 4 bleeps. You have the following team available in the hospital:
- Obstetric registrar
- Surgical registrar
- F1 doctor
Please read through and discuss with the examiner how you would prioritise these cases.
- A
Mrs A, a 75-year-old female, is confused after an elective cholecystectomy.
Her BP is 120/78, HR is 108, sats are 96% on RA and Temp is 38.4 degrees C.
- B
Miss B, a 25-year-old female has presented with RIF pain and spotting PV.
Her BP is 90/40, HR is 112 bpm, sats are 98% on room air and temp is normal.
The urine pregnancy test was positive.
- C
Mr C, a 40-year-old male admitted for appendicitis, has been complaining of pain and nausea.
The nurse has called you as there is no analgesia or antiemetic on the drug chart and no cannula.
His BP is 138/80, HR is 80, sats are 96% on RA and temp is normal.
- D
Mr D, an 87-year-old male, was admitted following a recent diagnosis of cancer and posted for surgery.
The ward received a call from his daughter requesting information about her father.
Order:
BCAD
This question gives you the opportunity to identify the most unstable patient, talk about A to E assessment, management plan such as Sepsis 6, talk about further possible investigations such as USS, escalation, and address ethical concerns like confidentiality.
Station B. Structured Interview
This is the get-to-know-you station in the O&G ST1 interview. Your assessors will ask you questions about you, your experience and about the the O&G training in general. This is the scary part for many people because they worry about this hypothetical interviewer who tsk-tsk-tsks at your answers.
The fact is that interviewers are consultants in your field who genuinely want you to do your best.
In my own interview, I could see one interviewer going the extra mile and nodding encouragingly throughout the interview. While this may not be the case everywhere, they genuinely mean well.
These questions are asked under 4 sections:
- Commitment to speciality:
- Quality Improvement measures
- Research and Teaching experience
- Experience outside of O&G, leadership and team working
Commitment to Speciality
Understanding O&G training is an absolute must here.
If you haven’t looked through it at all, I would suggest going through the RCOG website to understand the overall curriculum and structure in general and have a more detailed idea about the first year (or the first two years, as it is often clubbed). This would include competencies, courses, and exams expected of you that year.
They also expect you to know (and reasonably so), the challenges doctors may face in this specialty, how to deal with the stress, the future of O&G ( recent steps the NHS are taking ), and of course, the evergreen question- why obstetrics and gynaecology.
Something I read in a book (linked below), that helped me here was - you are talking to Obs and Gynae consultants about their speciality. They would love to hear about why their speciality is awesome!
Think about all the different aspects of OBG and why it interests you and have this written out while you prepare.
QI Measures, Research, and Teaching Experience
I have grouped these as they follow the same principle.
This part allows you to talk about the audit/QI project measures you have undertaken and the research, teaching experience, and teaching qualifications that you have so far.
Example Questions
- ’Have you done any audits?’
- ‘Tell me about your teaching experience.’
- ‘What are the levels of evidence?’
- ‘Do you think all trainees should do research?’
- 'Describe a PDSA cycle.'
- 'Tell me about a research project you have undertaken'
Advice & Tips
- Tip#3: Structure your answers
You’ll likely only be asked one question from each section. When talking about your experience, make it structured- this shows that you know what you are talking about.
For example, When talking about your audit, talk about it in the format of a PDSA cycle. When talking about your teaching experiences, group them according to the several different teaching methods.
- Tip #4: Mention your published & presented audits
When mentioning audits, or research, also mention if these have been presented/published anywhere
Experience Outside of O&G, Leadership and Team-work
Leadership and teamwork are pretty self-explanatory.
This section may ask you to take examples from your life where you displayed these characteristics. Again, if you have the time, a bit of theoretical knowledge will help improve your answer.
For example, the event “I directed a priority call”, can be made a meaningful answer once you think about ‘What makes a good leader’ or ‘what the difference is between a leader and a team player’.
Tip #5: Although a physical portfolio is not needed in your interview, have a basic one where you list what you have done because I assure you you have done a lot and may not remember all of this off the top of your head.
Advice & Tips
- Tip #5: Bring a basic portfolio
Although a physical portfolio is not needed in your interview, have a basic one where you list what you have done because I assure you you have done a lot and may not remember all of this off the top of your head.
Interview Scoring
This is the current scoring pattern for the Obstetrics and Gynaecology ST1 interview. Keep your eyes out for updates in future applications - changes for August start dates (round 1) are usually implemented around October, just before application.
There will be two interview panellists assessing you. The scoring given below is the combined total of both panellists.
| Clinical Prioritisation Breakdown | Maximum Marks |
|---|---|
| Ability to prioritise | 8 |
| Priority 1 | 12 |
| Priority 2 | 8 |
| Priority 3 | 8 |
| Priority 4 | 4 |
| Total | 40 |
| Structured Interview Breakdown | Maximum marks |
|---|---|
| Commitment to Speciality | 10 |
| Quality Improvement Measures | 10 |
| Research & Teaching | 10 |
| Experience Outside of Medicine, Leadership, and Teamworking | 10 |
| Total | 40 |
| Score overview | Maximum Marks |
|---|---|
| Clinical prioritisation | 40 |
| Structured interview | 40 |
| Global performance score (communication skills will reflect here) | 20 |
Preparing for the Interview
Revision prep is about three things:
- Preparation
Prepare your answers. Get a general idea of what points you want to cover if you are asked a specific question.
- Practice
Practice them at least one or two times.
- Presentation
Ensure your delivery is as good as your content. Make sure you have a polite, professional, calm tone.
Advice & Tips
- Tip #6: Time Your Answers
Try to time your answers to about 1.5 to 2 min.
- Tip #7: Practice with Others
Practise with trainees or consultants willing to give you mocks.
- Tip #8: Record Yourself
Record yourself and listen back, this will help you identify your use of filler words.
- Tip #9: Eye Contact
Maintain eye contact with the camera, not the screen. This one might be tough. It is human to look at the people you are speaking to on the screen but try and answer to the camera as this gives the actual impression of maintaining eye contact.
Useful Books
Here are some of the books and question-bank I found useful for my interview prep:
Medical Interviews (Fourth Edition)
by Oliver Picard, Dan Wood, Sebastian Yuan, Rachael Harlow, and Evelyn Mensah
"A Comprehensive Guide to CT, ST and Registrar Interview Skills - Over 120 Medical Interview Questions, Techniques, and NHS Topics."
A good book for any speciality interview and can be used throughout your career.
Obstetrics and Gynaecology Interview
Edited by Abbie Lang & Alexander Young
"The Definitive Guide With Over 500 ST Interview Questions For Obstetrics and Gynaecology Interviews: Volume 1 (CT/ST Medical Interview Guides)"
Speciality specific, a good book if you have some time to prepare.
Obstetrics and Gynaecology ST1 Interviews
by Neha Shah, Chawan Baran, Noshali Wimalaweera
Specialty specific and concise, a good choice if you are short on time.
Online Question Banks
Meddibuddy has a useful online Q bank that covers both parts of the interview.
You can check out more Question Banks on the MedCourse Qbank Section, with more being added all the time.
Tips for the Days Leading Up to the Interview
- Ensure you book days to study and prep during this time.
- Practice with other people.
- Make sure you have professional workwear for the interview.
- Make sure you have a strong internet connection and a room where you can attend the interview without interference.
- Make sure your computer has a webcam and microphone.
- Make sure you have a web browser that’s not Safari ( they recommend Google Chrome).
- Ensure the room is in an appropriate setting.
- Sleep well on the day before.
- Ensure you have your ID ( passport) and your blank paper and pen on the day of the interview.
- Don’t worry! They have staff that will try to troubleshoot if something happens on the day.
