UKFPO Bulletin

December Bulletin

World Aids Day – 1 December 

International Day of People with Disabilities – 3 December 

Other national campaigns this month 

Action for happiness calendar – ‘Do Good December’ 

Introduction

Welcome to the December bulletin! 

It’s that time of year – coats & scarves, frosty mornings & getting dark in what feels like the middle of the afternoon.  

Thinking forward 

It’s also a time of the year when Foundation doctors may be starting to think forward about what you’re going to do after you finish your Foundation Programme. There has been lots of coverage in both mainstream media and social media about the difficulties in doctors getting into specialty* training or other locally recruited posts, and I fully understand how stressful this is.  

Making a plan about achieving your career goals can help you to focus on what you need to do to get the job that you want. It’s really important that you have a think about what you want to do and not be influenced by others, well-meaning as they may be. A few personal tips: 

• Think about what you like doing (& what you don’t like doing) 

• Think about what you’re good at: we are all different, we have different strengths and weaknesses; whilst it’s unlikely you’ll be good at everything, you will be excellent at some things, concentrate on these skills and behaviours and think about what careers they might lead to 

• Think about the short term: what are your aims and priorities over the next year or two? 

• Think about the long-term: whatever specialty* you go into, you will be training for a few years, then you will be working as a senior doctor in the specialty for many years, so it’s really important that you have a good idea of what that entails (to use myself as an example, after medical school, I trained to be a physician for 10 years, I have been a consultant for more than 22 years so far, with a few years to go) 

• Think about what you can do now and in the next few months to help with your job application, have a look at application forms, ask colleagues who have been successful previously what helped them  

*I use the term ‘specialty’ for brevity – this includes general practice, hospital and community specialties 

Talk to others 

Reflecting on your own skills and strengths is important, but it might also be a good idea to talk to others and seek advice. Ask senior doctors about what they do, take any opportunity you can to see what they do (a good use of self-development time if you have it), try to find out the career pathway and how to get into it. Put all the information together and think whether it’s a specialty that you would be good at, and whether it would be a good fit for you as an individual. Good luck with your decision making! 

Take care of yourselves and your colleagues. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, and whether you are religious or not, I hope that over the festive season you get some time off to rest, relax and see your friends and family.  

Best wishes 

Dr Mike Masding, UKFPO National Clinical Director

Notices and announcements

FY1 Induction Survey – Part 2 (FY1s only) 

Many thanks to those of you who participated in part 1 of the induction survey. This second survey is designed to provide further information which will be used to develop our induction programme for doctors in the future. We plan to share this information as widely as possible, so your contribution could potentially make a significant difference to future doctors. 

Please complete part 2 whether you completed part 1 or not. There is an opportunity to provide more in-depth feedback as outlined in the final question. 

To access the survey please log onto https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FollowUpFY1inductionsurvey2025 or use QR code  

If possible, please complete the survey in one sitting, since you will not be able to access it later. It should only take you approximately 10 minutes to complete. The survey is anonymous and your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated. 

Spotlight on educational resources

NHS England National Workforce and Education Research Catalogue (WE-R NHS) 

Open to all UK foundation doctors 

Do you want to share your work on a national level? 

Do you need to do a research project or quality improvement project? 

WE-R NHS can: 

• Help you to have your work recognised and available on a national level 

• Share your quality improvement work with a wider audience to help drive change and improvements across the NHS 

• Support you to use their catalogue as a research/search tool to help refine and focus your own ideas for quality improvement work  

• Share your research with a wider demographic of NHS staff across many disciplines  

• Further education and workforce innovation across the NHS workforce  

Read more about the WE-R NHS catalogue 

Submit your research and content (online form) 

WE-R NHS is on YouTube – watch their videos on ‘Doing Research’ (a free resource for new researchers) 

Webinars

Recent webinars 

See our Webinars page for recordings of our most recent webinars: 

• Making the most of your e-portfolio – Tips, tools and reflections recording held on 22 October 

• GP as a career – Pathways, possibilities and perspectives held on 15 October 

• Myths and misconceptions about fitness to practice – UKFPO in conversation with the GMC held on 26 November (coming soon)

If you missed any of these please watch the recording, and share it with your colleagues! 

If there are any specific topics you think we have missed or you wish for us to cover in our educational webinar series, please send your suggestions to foundation.educationandsupport@nhs.net   

Opportunities and events

F1 taster opportunity in mental health research 

The NIHR Mental Health Translation Research Collaboration (MH-TRC) Mission Capacity Development Workstream (https://oxfordhealthbrc.nihr.ac.uk/mhm/capacity-development/) is offering research awards to Foundation Year 1 doctors who wish to explore mental health research opportunities. FY1 doctors are offered insights into current mental health research initiatives, opportunities to engage with experienced researchers and clinicians and develop research skills while exploring potential academic career pathways. 

Application deadline: 17:00 Friday 19 December  

Application form: MH-TRC Mission Capacity Development FY1 Research Taster Day(s) Programme – Fill in form 

If you require any assistance completing the form, or have any questions about the award please email MHM-Capacity@manchester.ac.uk 

Humans of the Foundation Programme 

Are you interested in creative writing and would like your article published on the UKFPO website, social media platforms and in this monthly bulletin (which is shared with the whole UK Foundation Programme community)? See our ‘Humans of the Foundation Programme’ webpage, created by Dr Jie Fei Lau, 2024-25 UKFPO Fellow, for further details, published articles and the submission form to submit articles of your own.   

New articles published this month: 

• ‘My Journey: From International Medical Graduate to Research Fellowship’ – Dr Mariia Amitsy 

• ‘Captain’ – Dr Hina Hafiz 

Elearning for healthcare update

Review the November 2025 elfh update