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BST Ireland 2013
- Thread starter ausum
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- Feb 23, 2013
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I did the BST interview this year for surgery and am happy to say I was successful in getting a spot.
This year was quite a bit more competitive than previous years, as the number of posts were cut down from 60 to 45. There were somewhere in the range of 105-110 people competing for those 45 spots, so no one was guaranteed a position.
Things that seemed to be the most important for gaining points were:
- doing well in your medical degree (lots of points for graduating with honours)
- having a previous or relevant degree
- research, especially if presented at international conferences or published in international publications
- extracurricular achievements
- the interview
The structure of the interview was not terribly intimidating. You're in a big room with multiple interviews going on around you separated by partitions. There are 2 consultants for every interviewee and they run through your CV and ask you questions for a total of 10 minutes.
The questions are pretty predictable and topical to current goings-on. I was asked about the recent NCHD "24 hours is enough" campaign, whether I thought surgeons should be involved in research, what area of surgery I saw myself going into, how a surgical candidate should be assessed, and what I thought of the new format of the BST. The consultants were lovely and it went by extremely quickly.
Best of luck in your application to the program.
This year was quite a bit more competitive than previous years, as the number of posts were cut down from 60 to 45. There were somewhere in the range of 105-110 people competing for those 45 spots, so no one was guaranteed a position.
Things that seemed to be the most important for gaining points were:
- doing well in your medical degree (lots of points for graduating with honours)
- having a previous or relevant degree
- research, especially if presented at international conferences or published in international publications
- extracurricular achievements
- the interview
The structure of the interview was not terribly intimidating. You're in a big room with multiple interviews going on around you separated by partitions. There are 2 consultants for every interviewee and they run through your CV and ask you questions for a total of 10 minutes.
The questions are pretty predictable and topical to current goings-on. I was asked about the recent NCHD "24 hours is enough" campaign, whether I thought surgeons should be involved in research, what area of surgery I saw myself going into, how a surgical candidate should be assessed, and what I thought of the new format of the BST. The consultants were lovely and it went by extremely quickly.
Best of luck in your application to the program.
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Congratulations and thanks for sharing!! 🙂))
