Academic Programmes STFS

Recruitment - Academic Foundation Programmes Commencing August 2012

For details of the August 2012 academic foundation recruitment process please click here.

Introduction

These have been developed for students who are interested in an academic career. They aim to offer training programmes for potential future clinical academics that attract the best graduates, fire their enthusiasm for a clinical academic career path, and allow them to develop ideas about future areas of research interest. There are currently 18 programmes affiliated to Brighton & Sussex Medical School (based at Brighton), 19 programmes affiliated to KCL Medical School (based at Guy's & St Thomas' Hospital or King's College Hospital), and 15 affiliated to St George's University of London Medical School (based at St George's or Royal Surrey County Hospital).

1. The Rough Guide offers a broad-based introduction to academic foundation training and is aimed at medical students contemplating a career in academic medicine.  The Rough Guide to the Academic Foundation Programme is available on the UKFPO website.

2. The Compendium outlines some of the additional competences which an academic trainee may acquire during the course of their training. This may be of interest to both the enquiring medical student and the academic foundation doctor.  You can download the Compendium at the bottom of this page.

How to use the Compendium

This compendium is not comprehensive or prescriptive but instead is a framework to help you, in partnership with your supervisor, to select areas for personal development. When meeting with your supervisor to plan your learning, you may wish to use the personal development plan template in the foundation learning portfolio.

Some foundation schools will set their own mandatory learning outcomes in addition to requiring that you have acquired and demonstrated that you have met the outcomes in the Foundation Programme Curriculum. You should acquaint yourself with the requirements of the academic programme before beginning to plan your learning.

The compendium uses the same headings as the Foundation Programme Curriculum (i.e. outcome, knowledge, attitudes/behaviours, and competences).  Although expressed in terms of outcomes, you are not expected to meet all of these outcomes, but instead you may wish to develop your knowledge, understanding and some of the skills/competences underpinning the outcome.  For example, while it may not be possible to write and submit an application for ethics approval, many programmes will be able to support you in your learning about the legal framework underpinning approval.