Cardiology | PHST Recruitment - Full, comprehensive guidance on applying to HST posts (2024)

Cardiology is one of the most popular and varied medical specialities, comprising a wide range of sub-specialities including electrophysiology, device therapy, interventional cardiology, imaging and specialist heart failure management.

Cardiological problems account for a large proportion of the medical workload, and by delivering evidence-based care cardiologists can make a real difference to patients.

Cardiology trainee characteristics

Cardiology will particularly suit trainees who are:

• motivated

• hard-working

• able to develop procedural skills

• keen to engage in clinical research

Working in cardiology

Within cardiology, physicians can develop a wide range of careers encompassing cardiovascular research, interventional cardiology, electrophysiology & device implantation, specialised heart failure management, advanced cardiac imaging and several smaller sub-specialities.

Sub-specialties/combined training

Working in some sub-specialities involves performing procedures with a high intensity on-call while others are more out-patient based with minimal on-call commitments.

In all these areas the pace of change and development is very rapid, providing a stimulating working life.

Widespread requirement

Cardiological input is required in every hospital and consultant appointments are made in both district general hospitals and tertiary centres; sometimes appointments will be made with sessions at both district general hospitals and the local tertiary centres.

Currently most electrophysiology and advanced cardiac imaging posts are within tertiary centres.

Competitiveness

Cardiology remains a very competitive speciality, and many trainees will choose a period of academic research leading to an MD/PhD during their training; this is highly encouraged.

Potential cardiologists will need to demonstrate excellence in their career to date, and to show that they are committed to the speciality.

The needs of patients with cardiovascular disease continue to grow and cardiologists can do more and more to help them. Cardiology therefore remains a growing speciality.

Further information

• NHS health careers- cardiology
• JRCPTB specialty pageand curriculum
• ST4 cardiologyperson specification
• The British Cardiovascular Society

This specialty will not be participating in round 2 of 2024 recruitment.

This is a Group 1 specialty and requires completion of the internal medicine training (IMT) stage 1 programme or equivalent; all programmes in the specialty will dual specialise with general internal medicine.

Therefore, this specialty uses the standard HST eligibility criteria for Group 1 specialties and does not accept candidates from any alternative training routes. Please visit theam I eligible?section of this website for further information.

The specialty will not be assessing your commitment to specialty as part of the shortlisting process and will score your application purely via the self-assessment scoring framework. Commitment to specialty will be assessed as part of the interview.

Cardiology has not participated in round 2 of recruitment since 2012 and this is not expected to change.

As part of the process of applying to HST, you may wish to gain an idea of how recruitment progressed in previous years for the various specialties participating in the nationally-coordinated recruitment.

To this end, we have published data dating backto 2013 (where this is available), based around four main areas:

• Competition ratios - application numbers submitted to each specialty,along with the number of NTN and LAT posts available in each.It is worth noting that posts are subject to change throughout the round (increasing on average between 20-40%), and postnumbers for this data are taken at the end of the round.

• Shortlist scores - the scores awarded to all submitted applications, including average scores and distribution nationally.

• Total scores - the total scoreawarded to all candidates who completed the full recruitment process for a specialty (application and interview), including some analysis of scores.

• Post fill rates- the number of posts filled by region.

We have published information for all specialties participating in our process that year; consequently not all specialties will have data in all cases.

This specialty will not be participating in round 2 of 2024 recruitment.

Indicative vacancy numbersare available in the table below,broken downby region and divided between substantive national training number (NTN) and locum appointment for training (LAT) posts. In many cases these will be presented as a range (e.g. 1-4) as it is not always possible for regions to know at this stage how many vacancies there will be.

It is the intention that indicative post numbers for all regions will be published prior to the application opening date, although this cannot be guaranteed. Please note thatthis table is not likely to be updated subsequent to indicative numbersand actual numbers will be confirmed whenprogramme preferencesare opened later in the round.

Numbers subject to change

Please be aware that it is not uncommon for vacancy numbers to change as the round progresses.

More commonly, post vacancy numbers can increase as the round goes on (and confirmation of posts becomes available); but it is also possible that numbers can reduce as well. In the past, post numbers have risen an average of 20-40% from the start to the finish of the round but this can vary greatly for individual specialty/region combinations.

It is possible that regions which do not have a post at the start of the round may declare one after applications have closed. Whilst we try and minimise instances of this, it is not always possible to predict vacancies so even if there appears not to be a vacancy in your preferred specialty/region combination, you may wish to consider applying in case one becomes available during the round; you can check with the region concerned if you wish to check on the likelihood of a post arising.

Generally, oncearegion enter a post into a round theywould always have at least one post available and would only withdrawit in exceptional circ*mstances.

*English LATs

Please note, English regions do not recruit toLAT posts.

**Scotland post numbers

If you are interested in working in Scotland, a breakdown of post numbers by the four Scottish regions is available on the Scottish Medical Training website. This has details of all specialty training post numbers in Scotland, including specialties which are not part of the nationally-coordinated process.

The SMT website will always be the more accurate one where they differ.

The interview will be split across two stations with a separate pair of interviewers scoring you on the areas in their station.There will be five questions which range between5-13 minutesin length.You will be marked on these questions and your communication skills, giving six scored areas in total. The headings below show the question areas and in which station they will be covered, along with information about what will be assessed.

Each station will last 22 minutes, so, including the time between stations, the interview will beapproximately50-55 minutes.

Please note that this is subject to change and will be confirmed by the date of interview.

The score of 1-5 an interviewer will award you for each assessment area isjudged in relation tohow well you perform against an expected level.Below is the framework used to award scores at interview, as well as interpretation of what these scores represent:

As shown in the table, for each of the question areas at interview, 3/5 is considered a satisfactory score; and reflects the level of performance that would be expected of a trainee ready to progress to a specialty training programme.

Should your performance go above and beyond this expected level, interviewers can award marks of 4/5 or 5/5 as appropriate.

Conversely, should your interview performance not reach the expected level, then interviewers can award marks of 1/5 or 2/5, as reflects their level of concern over your performance.

Raw interview score (RIS)

The RIS is the sum of all twelve scores awarded to you during your interview, butbefore any weighting is applied.

As each individual score will be between 1 and 5, your RIS will be between 12 and 60.

Appointability requirements

To be classed as 'appointable', you must meetallthree criteria below:

• noneof your twelve interview scores can be1/5
• no more than twoof your twelve interview scores can be2/5
• yourRISmust be36or above.

If you meet all three requirements, your application will be assessed asappointable, and can progress to be considered for post offers.

However, if you fail to meet any of these requirements, your application must then be assessed asnotappointable, and it will progress no further in that round.

After interview, a weighting is applied to the scores in each area, as well asyourapplication score.

These scores are then combined to give yourtotal score which determines your ranking, which will in turn be used to inform how offers are made. The weighting of different sections, as well as the method by which your total score is established, is detailed in the table accessible through the link below: