Hot Off The Press: Latest Radiology Specifications Out, National Prizes Up For Grabs, Academic Clinical Fellowships Are Open & A Look At The Competition Ratios!
Who ordered the quadruple whopper of succulent application updates served with a side order of fries and a full-fat Coke? You? Then you're in for a treat. Bon Appétit!
Hear ye, hear ye, read all about it! RadCast is back with the latest goss about what’s what in this year’s radiology application cycle. And let me tell you straight, if what they’re saying on the grapevine is true then you can bet your bottom dollar it’s going to be hot off the press!
Clinical Radiology Person 2025 Specification Available To Download!
Every year, the Person Specification is released in prior to the applications opening. And guess what, every year candidates ignore it altogether and are flummoxed when they’re asked about leadership at the interview. Well guess what, you were given plenty of notice by yours truly!
You see, the Person specification is basically your blueprint of what type of evidence they may ask to see as part of your portfolio and/or at the interview. By going through it, you’ll be able to quickly spot areas where you may lack any evidence of which you can then fix. That way, you can rest easy knowing you can’t be thrown off guard by being asked to show evidence of some specific skill/characteristic that is mentioned in the Person specification.
Since we obviously have no lives, we’ve done the hard work and compared the latest 2025 Person specification with the 2024 edition. For the most part, it’s the same apart from the bits where it isn’t (duh) which we have condensed for you below:
Previously left a training programme (including foundation training)? You now need can be eligible to apply if you fill in a form - in previous cycles if you were relinquished from another training programme or the foundation programme, you were NOT eligible to apply. This has changed this year with said candidates being required to fill in additional forms (as stated in the Person Specification).
Leaving one radiology training programme for another? You now need to fill in a form - as per the new Person Specification, you now need to fill in a form where you get your existing radiology TPD’s approval to allow you to re-apply to the same specialty in a different region e.g. from clinical radiology training in Leeds to training in Liverpool. Based on on understanding, you do NOT need to fill these forms in if you’re CHANGING specialties e.g. applying to radiology as a ST3 orthopaedic registrar.
Introduction of “specialty specific” selection criteria - alongside making the entire formatting a lot cleaner than previous editions, they’ve now added a “specialty specific” selection criteria domain (page 4 of the document). From comparing it to previous specifications, we think this section is basically an insight into what they’ll be looking for in their portfolio/possible interview questions. Specifically, elements such as research, audits and teaching are all mentioned in black & white. So our advice? Get cracking on fleshing out these elements whilst you wait for the updated portfolio scoring criteria to be released.
You can access (for free) the Person Specification by signing up to our Clinical Radiology Application Course (CRAC) via the button below:
Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF) Applications Are OPEN
For those of you looking to blend your clinical work with your academic interests i.e. be a nerd, then definitely check out the Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF). Now, we’re not going to bog you down with how the ACF pathway works but just know, ACF applications for Clinical Radiology are now OPEN on Oriel.
Now having reviewed what ACF vacancies are available, it’s a shame to see how few there are! We’re not sure why this is the case but it means that competition for each ACF post is likely to be more fierce this year. This is especially true since you can now ONLY apply to THREE ACF programmes! So, you’ll need to make sure you smash the white space answers so you can be shortlisted for interview. Fortunately, we offer a white-space answer review service so if you’re interested, please make sure to get in touch via the button below. It’s strictly on a capacity basis and once we’re full, we won’t be able to take on any more.
Also, the deadline for ACF applications is the 31st of October at 4pm (GMT+1)!
CRAIC Audit/Research & Reflection Prizes Now Open For Submissions
Similar to last year, we’re now accepting submissions to the CRAIC radiology audit/research & reflection prize categories. This is an opportunity to win a national prize and we’ll be declaring the winner prior to the closure of the application process in November 2024.
For more information, check out the free module called “RadCast National Audit and Reflection Prize (2024-2025)” using the button below. Please note, only candidates enrolled onto the CRAIC will be eligible to win the prizes.
Clinical Radiology Application Competition Ratio’s To The Moon!
Yesterday we got handed a graph. At first glance, we saw it was going positively parabolic and thought it was a graph highlighting the number of swear words ‘accidentally’ put into a radiology report by the voice recognition software as the number of hours into a radiology on-call shift increased. We were wrong, dead wrong.
Rather, what we were looking at was the competition ratios for clinical radiology since 2018. Jamie gasped, Muhammad shrieked and Uzi, well you won’t believe what Uzi did. He sent a shock emoji face and trust us, that’s Uzi going nuclear. Yes we knew the competition ratios were going up, but we did not anticipate it was going up this fast and by this much. This is made significantly worse when you look at how the number of vacancies is going up at a snails pace or declining in comparison.
Whilst we’ve summarised the competition ratios for you below, for 2024 it was a stupendous 11.92 for 312! Yes, you read that right. Flipping eleven point night two. Just a year earlier it was 8.77 for 350 spots and the year before that? 6.18 for 361 training numbers. So, the competition ratio has nearly doubled in the space of 2 years whilst the number of spots up for grabs has gone down by 49.
Now we could sit here for hours ranting about the deplorable the state of post-graduate training has become in the UK, but we won’t. Rather, we want to focus on what you can do to enhance you’re application during such a turbulent time. Fortunately, it’s simple.
Two things and two things only. Prepare for the monstrosity that is the MSRA and grab those easy, low hanging portfolio points. Got a half-cycle audit? Go make it a full-cycle. Haven’t done a taster week? Then what the hell are you doing?! Go do it! Every point counts both for the MSRA and the portfolio. Whilst the solution is simple, the problem is that it’s simply said and not simply done. It requires effort and turning up every day to fight for the cause. Honestly, we believe competition ratios are going to go up again this year which sounds ludicrous but genuinely, we think it’ll be the case.
So, yeah. That’s us done. Over the next weeks, we’ll be catching up with your emails and giving you personalised support. Then when the non-academic Clinical Radiology applications open up, we’ll be primed to help you all smash your applications…the RadCast way!
Till next time,
From your ‘back in my day we had an application ratio of 3’ friends,
Muhammad, Jamie and Uzoma
RadCast Co-Founders