2026 Clinical Radiology ST1 Portfolio review guidance

As part of your application for Clinical Radiology ST1, you will be required to complete a portfolio review along with submitting supporting evidence to justify the category you choose.

There are 5 domains, with descriptors of typical levels of experience which have been assigned categories. You should use your discretion to align your experience and achievements compared to these descriptors and choose a category which best reflects your situation. Include documentation to support your decision.

All achievements should be dated after the commencement of your first relevant undergraduate degree, and in any case, within the last 10 years prior to 21 November 2025.

If you are applying from the UK

For UK applicants - national refers to activity within the England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the UK as a whole.

Local would mean at the level of a hospital single Trust or University.

Roles outside healthcare include voluntary activity, arts, and other sciences, but not paid employment.

Application

As part of your Oriel application you will be asked to provide the category that your evidence most appropriately fits for each domain, as well as the name of the evidence you will be supplying (in 2024 approximately the top 850 candidates after sitting the MSRA are invited to upload evidence).

On Oriel as well as indicating the category your evidence will fall under, you will be asked to upload the title of the evidence and the date the evidence is achieved, this evidence will be the evidence the verifying clinician will be expected to review and cannot change.

You are unable to amend this section after you have submitted your application. If the evidence changes then you will be awarded a 0 for that domain.

Example of section on Oriel

Domain	Category	Title of evidence	Date evidence was awarded
1	B	To be confirmed
2	C	To be confirmed
3	A	To be confirmed
4	A	To be confirmed
5	A	To be confirmed

Portfolio upload process

You will only be invited to upload your evidence, should you be in the top 800 candidates following shortlisting.

Please note being invited to upload your evidence does not guarantee you will be invited to interview, and if you fail to upload no evidence you will be withdrawn from the recruitment process.

There will be a single piece of evidence for each domain, which should be uploaded as a single, continuous document, except for domain 1, category A, and domain 4, category A, where 2 pieces of evidence will be accepted.

Please note that larger file sizes can cause issues with downloading, which could impact your interview as verifiers will only 10 minutes to review your evidence.

Categorisation

For each domain, please select the descriptor and category which most truly reflects your experience. When more than one descriptor is appropriate for you for a particular domain, choose only the one which results in the higher score (see the category score guide). Include evidence which supports your category.

If an achievement legitimately fits under multiple domains, it is valid to claim in both categories (for example, academic work which was presented orally then subsequently published).

Please note categories are finalised when the application form is submitted. This means they cannot be edited in the event of a mistake, or an additional achievement completed after the deadline.

Completed achievements only

Only include achievements which are fully completed at the time of submission. Do not include anything which is still in progress. For example:

• Do not include qualifications if you have not yet been awarded an outcome
• Do not include articles submitted for publication if they have not been accepted
• Do not include a presentation if you have not yet presented it

Over-claiming

You should be honest with your evaluation and not attempt to gain unfair advantage by exaggerating or misrepresenting achievements. If this is identified, it could be considered a probity matter which could lead to outright rejection of your application, and in extreme cases, fitness to practice proceedings.

Your responses will be reviewed by trained assessors and based on your evidence can be revised up or down.

Scoring guidance

Below tables will be used by the assessors. Please note for domain 1 the scores are double weighted.

Category	Corresponding score for verifier
A	4
B	3
C	2
D	1
E	0

Portfolio review domains

Domain 1: Commitment to Specialty

Descriptor	Category
Multiple significant exposures to the work of a clinical radiology department*	A
One significant exposure to the work of a radiology department	B
Attended a radiology-based course of at least 1 day in length	C
Attended a radiology related conference	D
None of the above	E

*Please note: two pieces of evidence will be accepted for category A.

A significant exposure means a period of at least 3 whole day equivalent time attached to a clinical radiology department.

Examples are listed below

• A taster week/observership placement
• A student-selected component, elective, or similar part of a degree course
• A radiology based clinical (not lab) research project involving presence in a department/working with a radiologist

Multiple exposures must be meaningfully different; for example, more than one of the above types. Two taster weeks in different settings would qualify for the highest descriptor and score A, but 2 taster weeks offering the same experience would not and would score B.

Evidence for this section could include the following.

• Letter confirming placement from your clinical supervisor/education lead
• Official university documents confirming radiology-based placement/component
• Details of a radiology-based project with evidence of your involvement from your supervising consultant
• Course/conference certificate

Domain 2: Leadership and Management

Descriptor	Category	Examples
Hold/have held a national level leadership or managerial role involving radiology	A	National role, for example, within specialist society, royal college, nationally held fellowship position, relevant to radiology
Hold/have held a national level leadership or managerial role not involving radiology, but relating to healthcare or hold/have held a local/regional level leadership or managerial role involving radiology	B	National non-radiology healthcare role, for example, within British Medical Association (BMA), royal college Local role, for example, committee member of undergraduate radiology society
Hold/have held a national level leadership or managerial role outside healthcare or hold/have held a local/regional leadership or management role not involving radiology but relevant to healthcare	C	National roles outside healthcare may include charity work, sports, creative arts Local role relevant to healthcare but not radiology, for example, Junior Doctors Forum or Mess committee, Foundation programme representative
Hold/have held a local/regional leadership or management role outside healthcare	D	As above, at a local level
None of the above	E	Not applicable

Any roles claimed above must have been for a minimum period of 6 months. 

For UK applicants - national refers to activity within the England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the UK as a whole. Local would mean at the level of a hospital single Trust or University. Roles outside healthcare include voluntary activity, arts, and other sciences, but not paid employment.

Appropriate evidence would include confirmation of election/appointment, evidence of attendance at committee meetings, letters from chair or senior figure within relevant organisation. Evidence should specify the applicant by name, the role, and major responsibilities thereof.

Domain 3: Teaching and Training

Descriptor	Category
Hold a formal teaching qualification awarded at postgraduate level, for example: masters, CILT, PGDip, PG Cert	A
Have made a major contribution to a national or international teaching programme, with evidence	B
Evidence of other training in teaching methods after study of at least 2 days (such as Train the Trainers)	C
Have evidence of providing regional teaching	D
None of the above	E

For the purposes of this section a formal teaching programme should have a duration of at least 3 months in total.

A major contribution means a leading or organising role, such as a formal teaching fellowship or personally organising a formal, multi-session teaching course. National or international programmes should be open to all relevant learners in that discipline and would usually form part of a formal qualification, such as Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree, specialty diploma etc.

Local or regional programmes would be organised at the level of, for example, a single hospital Trust, and could include Foundation Programme teaching or similar activities. Formal teaching outside medicine, for example, to school students or in the community can also be included.

One-off, small group teaching would qualify in the third descriptor, as would evidence of solely delivering a single session to a larger local or national programme.
Appropriate evidence would include the following.

• Official documentation indicating your role as an organiser or deliverer of teaching
• Contemporaneous feedback collated or countersigned by a 3rd party

Domain 4: Audit and Quality Improvement

Descriptor	Category
I have led 2 or more audits or quality improvement projects relating to radiology which can be shown to have resulted in changed practice*	A
I have led an audit or quality improvement project relating to radiology which can be shown to have resulted in changed practice	B
I have led a non-radiology audit or quality improvement project, shown to have resulted in changed practice	C
I have contributed to, but not led, an audit or quality improvement project	D
None of the above	E

*Please note: two pieces of evidence will be accepted for category A.

Leading an audit/Quality Improvement (QI) project would usually include a major role in conception, data collection, analysis, and presentation. If your evidence does not demonstrate this, please select a different descriptor appropriately.

Evidence required:

• A letter from supervising consultant or QI/audit project stating level of involvement to satisfy the requirements described in the table above. The letter must be signed (can be digital signature to reproduce a physical signature) and include:
  • consultant name and GMC number (or corresponding national medical registration equivalent)
  • date

and

• Copy of audit project presentation outlining scope and impact (findings and improvements achieved) of project or, a summary of the project detailing scope and impact of the project

Demonstration of changed practice could be via a closed-loop second audit cycle showing better compliance to gold standard, or by improvement in a quality metric etc.

Relating to radiology means that diagnostic imaging formed a major part of the project.

Domain 5: Academic Achievements

Descriptor	Category
I hold a postgraduate research degree or research Masters (PhD, MD, MDRes) Or, I have at least one peer-reviewed publication relating to radiology as first author	A
I have at least one peer-reviewed publication relating to radiology, not as the first author Or, I have at least one peer-reviewed publication not relating to radiology but as a first author Or, A case report related to radiology, as first author Or, At least one oral or poster presentation relating to radiology at a national or international level, as first author	B
I have at least one peer-reviewed publication not as first author Or, A case report not related to radiology, as first author Or, At least one oral or poster presentation relating to radiology at local/regional level, as first author	C
At least one oral or poster presentation not relating to radiology at either local, regional, national or international level Or, Involvement in a research team as part of an elective, intercalated degree, extended student research and enterprise project, academic foundation programme, academic summer school or other research taster	D
None of the above	E

Please note, as mentioned above, intercalated and additional undergraduate degrees have been removed from scoring according to national specialty recruitment policy. (Points scored in this section are only for postgraduate achievements).

All activity in this section should be scientific relating to radiology means the project should involve diagnostic imaging. This does not preclude papers in other fields such as surgery, oncology and so forth if they have a significant imaging focus. Publications and presentations can relate to audit/QI activity.

Presentations should be proffered papers which have been through a process of peer-review and:

Copy of letter of acceptance of oral/poster presentation or copy of event programme citing presentation to include:

• The name of presenter or first author
• The institution convening meeting
• The date of the meeting/presentation

Evidence could include:

• Degree certificate
• Your Open Researcher and Contributor IDentifier (ORCID) summary citation including DOI/indexing service identifier (for example, PMID) conference catalogue