Career Planning
Choosing a Specialty
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There is a range of support available, whether you are Foundation Doctor and unsure which specialty to choose, a specialty trainee and want to change careers, or perhaps you are thinking about leaving medicine altogether.​
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Advice and activities to help trainee doctors decide between specialties, from gaining a better understanding of your personal priorities and preferences to weighing up the different options in front of you.
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Understanding Yourself
Your career decision needs to be the right decision for you, you need to understand your preferences, priorities and the things that are most important to you, for your life now and in the future. These activities are to help you reflect inwardly to make sure that you better understand what you want and need from your career.
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Values
Explore the differences between shared/absolute values and personal values. Your personal values are those that can help you identify a choice that will allow you to work within your values.
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Stressors
Recognise the most common work-related stressors and reflect on those that impact upon you the most.
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Skills
When making a career decision it is sensible to have an accurate knowledge into your personal strengths and weaknesses. Your skills will obviously develop over the course of your training but insight into those things that come more naturally may inform your choice.
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Role Model
Consider what effect the influencing people in your life may have on your decision.
Seeking Specialty Information
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There is a range of support available, whether you are Foundation Doctor and unsure which specialty to choose, a specialty trainee and want to change careers, or perhaps you are thinking about leaving medicine altogether.​
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Whilst it can be difficult to find the time, information gathering will not happen by accident and you will need to put some time aside to seek out more to better understand the pathways available to you.
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Speak with Junior doctors in your chosen specialty/ies, try to get a balanced viewpoint by speaking with a few different trainees at different stages.
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Speak with Consultants in your chosen specialty/ies, remember you will be a consultant for much longer than you are a junior doctor and sometimes the consultant day-to-day job differs substantially from the junior doctor day-to-day job.
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Organise taster days/weeks, these usually need to be sorted out quite well ahead of time so start early.
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PSWS Thames Valley is here to offer you coaching and support for career dilemmas
Making a decision
Often Foundation trainees narrow down their options to two or three but find it hard to choose between them. Alternatively, trainees further on in their career sometimes need to decide whether to change specialty direction. When this happens, the information gathered from internal reflection and from external sources can feel overwhelming. These activities are to help you, understand yourself as a decision maker and structure your decision-making.
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Be aware of the potential pitfalls in your natural decision-making process.
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Consider your natural preferences in the decision-making process and identify what parts you are most likely to miss.Decision making preferences
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Force field analysis decision maker
Conduct a logical analysis of the forces acting for and against the options in front of you.
Think about the future you want to have and how you might move towards that future in the decisions you make now.
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Challenging your decision making
Some challenging questions to help you validate your decision and really check that you are confident in the decision you have made.