How to become a cardiologist in the UK

Hi, my name is Neil Anglin, a consultant cardiologist, and I'm going to talk to you about how to become a cardiologist in the UK. As you stay towards the end of the video, I'll also discuss how to improve your chances of getting into specialty training. Let's presume you finish medical school, and you do have an idea that you want to become a cardiologist. So the first thing after medical school in the UK, you get enrolled into a foundation program. This is usually two years and comprises of various different medical specialties around four months each. Specialties include all the specialties within medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry, general practice. Each foundation program has their own list of specialties that you'll be rotating around. So pay close attention when applying for your foundation program to what specialties you'll be doing. I also encourage anyone that's starting their junior doctor life to start thinking about the MRCP exam. This is really, this would be kind of a rate limiting step when it comes to applying for specialty training, because if you don't have the MRCP, it'll be very difficult to get into specialty training at the time of application. So after the two foundation years, you then need to apply for either internal medicine, stage one, or acute common care stem with internal medicine. So after the foundation year training, some doctors actually don't progress straight to either internal medicine or acute common care stem until they decide to do something different. For example, travel or go abroad for further experience. I suggest this is quite a good time to do this. I personally did it myself. I went to New Zealand for a year and, you know, I worked in a hospital in New Zealand which included some cardiology, which again gave me experience. What I don't advise is you just taking a year out and not doing anything at all. If you're going to do something, do something productive like work abroad as a doctor or do some voluntary work, because this is also useful when it comes to interviews in the future, because this can be discussed at an interview and it may you know, make you stand out compared to someone who hasn't done this. However, it isn't necessary to do something different at this stage if you just want to move on with your career. So what's the difference between internal medicine stage 1 and acute common care stem with internal medicine? Well, first of all, it's the time it's taken. So with internal medicine stage 1, it's a three-year program and with the acute common care stem, it's usually a four-year program. With internal medicine, which is the route that I took, you'll be put into a medical rotation for a period of three years and usually the specialties you rotate around are usually for four to six months, which include things like gastroenterology, renal medicine, cardiology itself, care of the elderly, you'll do some time working in acute medicine as well. So, you know, this is obviously very useful if you're going to be a cardiologist because, you know, you need internal medicine as part of it. It also gives you a taste of different medical specialties. So if you decide that you have a liking for a different medical specialty, you can always apply for that when it comes to specialty applications. If you go down the acute common care stem route, this is a route that I didn't take. However, it is very useful as it gives you exposure to intensive care, anaesthetics, and obviously all the procedures that are involved with that. So with acute common care stem, you usually spend some time in ED, anaesthetics, ITU, as well as doing some general medicine. This is a slightly longer route for four years, but it does give you extra experience. So during this time, again, I would strongly encourage working towards the MRCP exam because, again, that's going to be the rate-limiting step of you getting into specialty training. So once you finish the internal medicine stage one or acute common care stem training, you're then eligible to apply for specialty training, in this case cardiology. However, as I said already, it is really important that you take and pass the MRCP exams, which comprise of three parts, MRCP part one, part two, and part two PACEs. So, you know, if you don't have this exam, then it's going to stop you really getting into specialty training. So when you apply for cardiology specialist training, it's an application form and an interview, and if accepted and you qualify, you'll then get into specialty training at your chosen deanery. So cardiologist specialist training is five years, and during the five years of training, you can take time out to gain experience of research or, you know, you can take time out for fellowships as well. I would like to point you towards this website, which is the IMT recruitment website. You can see the web URL on the slide. Basically, if you take a look at this, it does actually show you what you need for the application. Therefore, I'd encourage everybody to have a look at this website, and therefore you can see what things you need to put on your application or how to build up your CV in order to be a strong candidate in order to get into internal medicine. In fact, it's not just internal medicine. If you look at these subheadings, it will actually put you in good stead for specialty applications as well. The headings we've got under here are postgraduate qualifications, which include sort of PhDs or MDs that you've done after your initial medical degree. You also have any presentations, and presentations can be done locally, nationally or internationally. Any publications, it's kind of self-explanatory, and we'll talk about this towards the end of this video. This all talks about teaching experience. Teaching experience includes, you know, teaching medical students, junior doctors, but also you gain more points if you organise a teaching programme with a curriculum. So, please take a look at this website as it goes into more detail about this. You get points for taking on some formal teacher training and also a quality improvement project, such as an audit, especially something that's led to a change. So, during your FY years, you know, you really need to look at these subheadings and look at ways to improve your CV, which will therefore improve your chances of getting into internal medicine or acute common care stem, but this in turn will also help with your application for cardiology training. So, on this slide, this is basically the five years of cardiology training. The curriculum has changed recently and also incorporates dual accreditation in internal medicine. So, the first two years usually is a bit of a split between general medicine and general cardiology, and in years three to five, there's more focus on the advanced themes, such as heart failure management, or coronary intervention, or devices, for example. So, that encompasses the five years of cardiology training. Like I said earlier, during these five years, you can apply for time out of program to take on a formal research degree, such as an MD or PhD, or a fellowship in a chosen subspecialty. In order to improve your chances of getting into internal medicine and as well cardiology specialty training, here are some hints on applying. So, you definitely have to get your MRCP exam because that will be a rate limiting step. You won't be able to get into specialty training without MRCP. If you've had a chance to take on a higher degree, like an MSc, and PhD or MD, that'll be extremely beneficial and scores you points on the application process. If you've done any formal research, that again will gain you points, and academic publications are really beneficial. So, if during your FY years, and also, you know, if you're in internal medicine as well, you really, really need to do things like audits, case reports, publications, and contribute towards quality improvement projects, because this all scores you points in the application process and will be discussed in your interview. Obviously, teaching, we've already mentioned. So, teaching medical students, junior doctors, and if you organise a teaching curriculum, that scores you higher points, as well as getting a formal teaching teacher training. Management and leadership skills also scores you points, and we'll talk about this on the next slide. Also, participation at specialty meetings. So, in cardiology, there are local, national, and international meetings. So, if you manage to create, for example, a poster publication, then, you know, if you manage to get this presented at one of these meetings, that scores you more points on your application. There are various courses that you can attend in the subject of cardiology, and I mean, definitely in the UK, there are lots of courses to attend, and in Scotland itself, where I'm from, there is the Scottish Cardiac Society, where you can, you know, you can attend, which just shows your keenness for the specialty. And what's really important, actually, is if you get some experience in echocardiography, and you can prove at the interview that you do have good skills in echocardiography, that'll set you above, you know, stage above other applicants, because as a specialist trainee in cardiology, echocardiography is one of the sort of basic skills we need you to grasp right at the beginning of your training in order to help, you know, manage patients when you're on call. So if you've done some ECHO, get some experience with ECHO, there are also ECHO training courses. It'd be good if, you know, if you did that, that will make you stand out more than other people who haven't done it. So I just want to go back to management and leadership, because a lot of junior doctors state, you know, how do we get management and leadership experience as a junior doctor? You know, surely you get these opportunities when you're more senior. However, there are a number of things you can do to get management and leadership experience. So just looking at my slide, you can get involved with hospital committees and projects. There are formal courses on leadership and management. So if you can attend one of these courses and get a certificate for it, you can put that on your application. You can shadow senior leaders or mentors. You can join junior doctors committees, such as the British Medical Association or the British Junior Cardiologists Association. You can lead junior doctor forums, lead war grounds, lead MDT discussions when you're, you know, in internal medicine, for example. You can supervise students and, you know, be mentors to students. That shows some good leadership. And you can also be proactive in suggesting and implementing improvements with your QI project. So there are a number of things you can do and really it all takes planning, you know, think ahead. Obviously, if you're watching this video, you're already thinking about how you can get into cardiology training and having done these things will put you a step above applicants who haven't done this. So just once you're in cardiology training, like I said, the final years of cardiology training, you'll be doing subspecialty training which includes either imaging, EPD and devices, adult congenital heart disease, heart failure or intervention. So just to summarise, as you can see, there are a number of things you should be doing prior to applying for cardiology training. So in your FY years and in your internal medicine or acute common care stem years, you really need to be building your CV up with various different things that make you stand out from other people. Obviously, you really need to get your MRCP exams done. So, you know, I wouldn't delay this. I would just start doing this. Even in the FY years, as soon as you can start applying for MRCP part one, I would do this and then obviously start building up your CV with certain, you know, if you can get publications done, case reports done, quality improvement projects, some experience of leadership and management, you know, these will all help with your application to specialty training. Cardiology specialist training takes five years and at the end you'll get CCT and then can apply for a consultant post. So thanks again for watching this video. I hope you got something out of it. If you want to see videos like this in the future, please subscribe and like my video because it really helps me and I look forward to speaking to you again soon. Thank you very much.