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I read with great interest the article ‘’A new outlook for medical registrar training’’ by Abi Rimmer.
‘’Flexible portfolio training (FPT)’’ further confirms and consolidates Royal College of Physicians’s and Health Education England’s belief in implementation of competency-based training in the UK. Competency based training contrary to time-based training provides more trustworthy evidence of completion of training via direct observations and assessments by multiple independent evaluators (1,2). Flexible portfolio training is aimed at improving the recruitment and retention in dual-accrediting medical specialties (3) in the regions where it has been a challenge to fill in the training posts. ‘’Flexible portfolio training (FPT)’’ in many ways seems to be a similar initiative by Health Education England as ‘’Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS)’’ which had been introduced to improve GP recruitment into hard to recruit training places (4) evidently without attached financial benefits.
In my opinion ‘’Flexible portfolio training (FPT)’’ will become a successful initiative in medical registrar recruitment like ‘’Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS)’’ in GP registrar recruitment, but we will have to wait to see the reported benefits of both these schemes before these can be extended to other hard to fill specialities like Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Paediatrics.
References
1- Time- versus Competency-Based Residency Training, Nguyen, Vu T. M.D.; Losee, Joseph E. M.D., Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Issue: Volume 138(2), August 2016, p 527–531, DOI: 10.1097/PRS.0000000000002407
2- ten Cate O. Trust, competence, and the supervisor’s role in postgraduate training. BMJ 2006;333:748–751
3- Flexible portfolio training - Royal College of Physicians, https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/file/12056/download?token=eg_ax_dO
4- Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme in England, FAQs for GP Applicants (2019-20), https://gprecruitment.hee.nhs.uk/Recruitment/TERS/England
Competing interests:
No competing interests
04 February 2019
Bilal Haider Malik
Higher Specialist Trainee in Geriatric Medicine and General Internal Medicine
Flexible Portfolio Training (FPT) and Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS)’’ - A Trainee's Perspective
Dear Editor
I read with great interest the article ‘’A new outlook for medical registrar training’’ by Abi Rimmer.
‘’Flexible portfolio training (FPT)’’ further confirms and consolidates Royal College of Physicians’s and Health Education England’s belief in implementation of competency-based training in the UK. Competency based training contrary to time-based training provides more trustworthy evidence of completion of training via direct observations and assessments by multiple independent evaluators (1,2). Flexible portfolio training is aimed at improving the recruitment and retention in dual-accrediting medical specialties (3) in the regions where it has been a challenge to fill in the training posts. ‘’Flexible portfolio training (FPT)’’ in many ways seems to be a similar initiative by Health Education England as ‘’Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS)’’ which had been introduced to improve GP recruitment into hard to recruit training places (4) evidently without attached financial benefits.
In my opinion ‘’Flexible portfolio training (FPT)’’ will become a successful initiative in medical registrar recruitment like ‘’Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS)’’ in GP registrar recruitment, but we will have to wait to see the reported benefits of both these schemes before these can be extended to other hard to fill specialities like Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Paediatrics.
References
1- Time- versus Competency-Based Residency Training, Nguyen, Vu T. M.D.; Losee, Joseph E. M.D., Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Issue: Volume 138(2), August 2016, p 527–531, DOI: 10.1097/PRS.0000000000002407
2- ten Cate O. Trust, competence, and the supervisor’s role in postgraduate training. BMJ 2006;333:748–751
3- Flexible portfolio training - Royal College of Physicians, https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/file/12056/download?token=eg_ax_dO
4- Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme in England, FAQs for GP Applicants (2019-20), https://gprecruitment.hee.nhs.uk/Recruitment/TERS/England
Competing interests: No competing interests