Health Education England Yorkshire and the Humber, who co-ordinate the national ST3 orthopaedic specialty selection applications and recruitment have announced the key dates for the ST3 orthopaedic interviews 2020.
Applications open at 10am on 29 January 2020 and will close at 4pm on 19 February 2020. All interviews will take place in Leeds. Applicants will submit one application electronically for all vacancies via the Oriel recruitment portal. The interviews will take place from 1st-3rd of April in Leeds.
In addition the 2020 ST3 T&O Person Specification has also been published. The PS forms the basis for how the applications and interviews are scored across all of HEE.
ST3 Ortho Interview Reaction
As you can see the dates are almost identical to 2019 selection. The 2020 Applicant Handbook has yet to be released and it is this that usually has the definitive information regarding the interview format, scoring and more. The interviews will again be held at Elland Road in Leeds.
There are no significant changes to the 2020 PS which contains the same key characteristics and criteria as previous years'. The PS has been streamlined from the more complicated previous PSs meaning you should definitely take a look to familiarise yourself with how the scoring criteria will be mapped once released.
The main change to the 2020 ST3 trauma and orthopaedic applications is that candidates applying in 2020 will NOT be required to submit Personal Skills Assessment forms as part of the recruitment process. The Personal Skills Assessment (PSA) forms were brought in for the 2016 applications and required candidates to get feedback from 3 consultants that you had worked with as a way to offer a structured reference that contributed to your interview score. The PSA was listed as a “small but important element of the application” and contributed 13% of the total marks available with 45 marks available. Feedback was varied and it is likely the removal represents a way to better standardise the process and scoring system for applicants. It also (hopefully) means less paperwork needs to be collected around application and interview time. Vacancies are typically published online in the new year following final submission and sign-off by HEE. Indicative numbers and deanery information can be found here.
Top Tips For ST3 Orthopaedic Interviews 2020
As always we recommend assuming nothing regarding the interview format or scoring and to begin preparing your portfolio and portfolio answers prior to Christmas and then focusing on clinical and technical skills after Christmas.
Our winter ST3 Interview courses only have a few spots remaining and are a great way to kickstart your interview preparation this side of Christmas and traditionally have seen the highest scoring candidates attend. We have also expanded the ST3 ortho interview question bank and online preparation for 2020 with new questions, expanded explanations and more coming in the run up to applications.