Peninsula Foundation School Welcome Event March 2022

 Background

The Peninsula Foundation School organises an annual event to help applicants matched to the School make their individual job preferences. Due to the global Covid-19 Pandemic the 2022 Welcome Event was held on Wednesday 16^th March 2022 via a virtual webinar. A team from each location attended including Foundation Programme Directors, Foundation Programme Managers/Administrators and current Foundation trainees.

Content

• Presentations from current trainees in each of the 5 trusts in the Peninsula
• 10-minute question and answer sessions for each trust following their presentation 

Objectives of the event

• Introduce the applicants to the locations in the Peninsula.
• Give the applicants the opportunity to hear from each locality, ask questions and gather information.
• Give the applicants the opportunity to hear from current trainees and ask questions about their experience. 

Attendees were asked to complete an online evaluation form after the event.

Evaluation
206 people were matched to the School for programmes starting in August 2022. 61% (126) logged in to the event at some point during the afternoon. This is a fewer number on the previous year’s figure (2021) of 87% (160). 48% (61) of those who joined the online event completed an evaluation form, compared with 52% (83) in 2021.

For F1 2022, the school will be made up of 36 (17%) local graduates and 170 (73%) graduates from other medical schools.

Decision Making

Overall, 30% of the 61 students who completed an evaluation form made a different decision about their first choice preference because of the event. This included students who were initially decided but were undecided after the event.

Table 1 – Applicants’ preferences following the event

 

 

As shown in table 2, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust was the most popular locality before the event with 41% of delegates saying that this would be their first choice. After the event, Exeter and Torbay had gained students and, Plymouth and Cornwall had lost students putting them as their first-choice locality. North Devon was not rated by anyone as their top preference. 

The number of students who were undecided this year (20%) before the event was higher than in 2021 (13%), and after the event the number of delegates who were undecided fell from 12 (20%) to 10 (16%).

Table 2 – First choice trusts

 

 

Most useful aspects of the event

In general, attendees’ comments suggested they valued many different aspects of the event as a whole.

The attendees found the following aspects of the day the most useful and important to them

• Really great to hear first-hand experience from F1 and F2 doctors (35)
• It was good to see the pros and cons of each hospital and understand a bit more about how it works(19)
• Q and A, particularly good run through slido (18)
• It was useful to get an insight into life at each of the Trusts (8) 

A selection of verbatim comments for ‘most useful aspects of the event’ (note; all comments can be found in Appendix 1) 

• Very useful to get more detailed info on life in each place as an F1 from people who have done it, and I got a much better idea of the vibe of each hospital from the session than from just looking online
• Presentations from each trust with information on common things that worry people I.e. accommodation, parking and mess events
• The talks from the F1s and F2s about what their life was like and examples of rotas was useful. The information about the messes and accommodation was also good. The most useful bits are probably the discussions about the pros and cons of each hospital so we can get more of a clear image of what they’re like.
• Really enjoyed being able to ask questions live on slido and have them answered. Also enjoyed each trust talking through what makes it unique and why to choose it!
• Very organised, every presentation was informative and covered different aspects of work and social life of each hospital and local area!
• Hearing honest reviews about each place, where is good to live around each place

Suggestions for improvement 

Attendees were asked if they thought there was anything that could be improved for similar events in the future. Their suggested changes include: 

• More detail on links to bigger cities
• Maybe an extra break?
• I think the minimum scores for each hospital as a trend each year would be useful to give people a feel for how competitive they were.
• More on how to rank all the choices and techniques different people use.
• Maybe have like a general overview
• More information about how to use SharePoint before the event
• Think information about how many people are allocated to one of their top 10-25 preferences could ease some peoples anxieties.
• More time for Q&A
• Perhaps a more structured Q&A session - with different sections e.g. location, pay, job satisfaction, challenges, etc.
• One of the presentations displayed the rotations in a good diagram, splitting them into ward, surgical and other. It would be helpful for all trusts to do this.
• Maybe more testimonials from foundation doctors who are IMGs
• Maybe a little about whether it’s easy to meet people and make friends with people outside of medicine
• Maybe run the session later in the day as was hard to make it there with placement
• It could have contained more practical information regarding next steps and what our induction week would be like
• More about individual jobs (but I appreciate that’s on the share point). Also, more help with how to go about choosing - if the list of deaneries had been sent as an excel file it would have been SO much easier to use and rank.
• A good timeline of when we will get things like job offers/actual contracts/etc
• More information on some of the more uncommon/new job rotations would be great, thank you!
• Slightly shorter with more on lifestyle and living in the area

SharePoint site

Before the welcome event the Foundation School designed a SharePoint site which contained comparable data for all trusts. This included a hospital description, list of jobs available, sample job descriptions, rotas and pay information. Some trusts had also prepared videos of the hospital for the new cohort. The students were sent a link to the site when they were allocated to the school to give them time to read the information before the welcome event. 

The attendees were asked to rate the information provide on the site. 90% of attendees reported that they thought the information was good or excellent and 1 person rated it as poor. This was because they had problem accessing the site.  

Attendees were asked if there was anything that would improve the site for future cohorts. 13 (21%) trainees would have liked to see job descriptions and rotas for all posts and not just a sample few. There were also comments regarding more information on accommodation including local estate agents, more information on jobs from F1s, an excel spreadsheet with all rotations, more standardised information on each trust and previous years ranking information.

Online event
Due to the global pandemic the Foundation School had to run the 2022 Welcome Event virtually. Attendees were asked how they would rate the event with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent. The event wasn’t rated as 1, 2 or 3 by any attendees and the majority (72%) rated the event as a 5.

Future Events

Attendees were asked if they would have preferred to have attended the event as a face-to-face session for which they had to travel. 77% said they would not have preferred to attend a face-to-face session for which they had to travel. Reasons for this included: 

• No travel costs
• More convenient
• Too far away to travel for a 3 hour event
• Less time commitment online
• Final exams  – wouldn’t have been able to taken the whole day out
• Currently on elective out of the country
• Easier to attend online at short notice

For those that said they would have preferred to attend a face-to-face event or would maybe attend the reasons were similar: 

• Would be good to meet peers and potential new colleagues
• Chance to explore the area
• Face to face is more personal 

The 2022 cohort is made up of 81% of students who graduated outside the Peninsula which could have an impact on this question. Local students could be happier to travel to attend the event face-to-face as the localities are relatively close and wouldn’t take too much time out of their day but students from further away might have a different opinion.

Attendees were asked if they would recommend the event to other applicants in future years. 100% of attendees who completed the evaluation said yes, they would recommend the event. 

Yes, exactly as it was provided for me	57 (93%)
Yes, with some changes	4 (7%)

The 4% who would recommend the event with some changes have suggested the following: 

• Ability to interact in the presentation with those presenting rather than have questions proctored
• Asking questions was difficult through the online server, many questions ignored
• Job descriptions on share point 

Summary and Recommendations 

The Peninsula Foundation School held an online Welcome Event on Wednesday 16^th March 2022 for those people matched to the School for F1 2022.  The aim of the event was to introduce the Foundation Programme and the individual localities within the Peninsula and give applicants the opportunity to ask questions and gather information to help with ranking post preferences for F1. 

126 of 206 (61%) people matched to the School logged into the event during the afternoon and 48% (61) of those who attended completed an online evaluation form. 100% of attendees completing the evaluation recommended the event. 

Overall, 30% of attendees who completed the evaluation made a different decision about their first choice preference because of the event. 10 (16%) students were undecided after the event which is less than the previous year (12, 15%).  6 of those who were undecided had come to the event with a definite choice but had been influenced by the presentations to consider more than one trust. Exeter was the most popular locality before and after the event. 

Students had access to a SharePoint site before the event which contained a lot of comparable data for each trust in the Peninsula. 90% of trainees rated the site as good or excellent. 13 (21%) trainees would have liked to see job descriptions and rotas for all posts on the site and not just a sample few. There were a few trainees who had trouble accessing the site so there might be a need for some guidance on how to access it for future cohorts. 

77% said they would not have preferred to attend a face-to-face session for which they had to travel which is an increase on last years figure of 45%. Only 1 attendee (a local student) said they would have preferred to attend a face to face event and the remaining 21% said they were not sure. 

Suggestions for improvement from attendees included:

• A timeline of when job offers/actual contracts will be sent out
• More information on some of the more uncommon/new job rotations
• Testimonials from foundation doctors who are IMGs
• More time for Q&A
• A more structured Q&A session - different sections e.g. location, pay, job satisfaction, challenges, etc.
• All presentations to display the rotations in a diagram, splitting them into ward, surgical and other.
• Information on previous cohorts preferences and how competitive each trust was 

The foundation school will need to meet with the trust representatives to discuss the suggested changes and the possibility of implementing them for future events. 

The attendees rated the event on a scale of 1-5 and 72% rated it as a 5 and the remaining gave a rating of 4. This was the second time the school had run the event online and the online platforms used were an improvement on the previous year. 

Overall, this a very positive repot and is clear that the attendees really value the opportunity to gather more information on each trust and talk to current trainees before making their preferences.

 

Natalie Band

Foundation School Administrator

April 2022

This page was last updated July 27th 2022 (2 years ago)