Let's Talk About Tomorrow
How to approach results day the RadCast way and a super shameless plug to join our YouTube channel
So it all comes down to this. The final slumber before the dawn of destiny. 5pm, 14th of March 2022.
*dun dun duuuuunnn*
Okay, okay, okay. I’ll stop the melodramatic bullsh*t.
But tomorrow is D-Day and for all of you who have made it this far, we understand the nerves you’re probably feeling right now. From continuous f**k up’s on Oriel to rumours running rife on Reddit, it’s been a long slog. I take my hat off to you for making it this far and ask you to persevere for one more day my friend. It’s nearly all over.
We hope tomorrow will bring plenty of cheers but thinking realistically, we know some of you may not get the result you wished. That’s why in this newsletter, I want to outline the support available to you from us at RadCast based on the outcome of your application.
It’s A Yes
Congrats all round! Time to celebrate and I mean it, genuinely please do celebrate. There are not many ‘wins’ in medicine anymore so take every chance you can.
But what now?
Firstly, get in touch with us. We want to hear your success story. Just drop us a quick message via the button below and tell us where you’ve got the job!
P.s. if you got North West, specifically Mersey, we’d love to hear from you!
And then?
What more do you want? Jeez. Nah I’m only joking. At this point many candidates ask if they should go on a radiology book shopping spree on Amazon. Please don’t. You have plenty of time to learn radiology come August 2022. Instead, use your time to just enjoy (if that’s a thing) the last few months of being a “real” doctor before you come join us in the dark side and become a specialist.
It’s A Semi-Yes
It sounds like you’re telling us you’re on the reserve list. If that’s the case, please don’t stress out. Patience is key.
At this stage, you’ve been deemed appointable (yay) but your rank wasn’t high enough to get into your ranked deaneries (nay). So you’re in limbo.
So what do you do?
There isn’t much you can do. You just have to ride it out and see if all appointable candidates decide to take the radiology job. If not, the vacant posts will become available to those on the reserve list with higher ranked candidates on the reserve list getting first dibs.
It’s A No
This is the one that hurts the most.
Whilst we hope and pray this doesn’t happen to any of you, I want to take this opportunity to outline what support we can offer you.
Firstly, our doors are open for you. Our availability does not end at the point of acceptance nor rejection. Our doors are ALWAYS open for you and I cannot emphasise that enough.
So what should you do?
In the first instance, please do not make any rash decisions. Emotional decisions aren’t always the best and this also applies to career choices. Yes, you may not have got in this year but that doesn’t mean you throw away your dreams of pursuing radiology. Do not let one setback define your entire trajectory.
Instead, use this opportunity to flesh out your next steps in a logical manner. Is the next step a FY3 year? If so, is it the locum life? Or are you going to pursue a fellow post?
Secondly, ask how you’ll take your application and improve it further. Was it your portfolio that let you down? If so, what domain was it? Was it the MSRA? If that’s the case, be realistic about the prep you did and outline how to build on it. Or was it your interview performance? Once again, the crux of all these points is honest reflection using constructive feedback. Now before you vomit hearing such generic, and often useless, buzzwords, let me put it into context. If you were successful in getting to this stage of the application process, you’ll have received (or will receive) three critical sources of information:
Your MSRA score per section i.e. Professional Dilemmas and Clinical Problem Solving domains
Your verified portfolio score
Your interview performance score
You need to review each of these elements and make a game plan that addresses each of the shortcomings (if any) in the 3 parts above. But you have to be honest with yourself. Just saying “I need to revise more” is frankly a waste of your neurons. How will you revise more? What sections did you suck at? Set yourself SMART goals if you’re into all that productivity guru hype crap. I’m not but honestly, be truthfully blunt with yourself on how you can take your application to the next level.
Finally, get in touch with us. Sometimes you can’t see the wood from the trees and need another perspective to help you make sense of things. Hopefully, we can be those pair of eyes for you. So, please do get in touch via the button below.
Final Thoughts
I think I am becoming more sentimental in my old age (urgh my birthday is in 4 days) but I genuinely do feel the tension you guys are all under. I’ve been there, Uzoma has and Jamie too. We all remember the day we got our results. Like I said, I hope that all of you get the result you’re looking for but, and this is far more important, please know our doors are open for each and every one of you.
Now before I go off to ponder about life’s meaning, let’s end on a lighter note with a shameless plug for our YouTube channel. We’ve been slowly building it and are on 630 subscribers as of today. Now we’re nowhere near retiring off that lucrative YouTube ad money just yet but we’d love it if you could spare a few seconds of your day (as if you’re sleeping tonight anyhow) and subscribe to your YT channel via the button below:
Take care all!
From your friendly neighbourhood radiologist,
Muhammad
RadCast Co-Founder