2024/25 Core Surgical Training Portfolio Guidance for Candidates

Choose one of the following options

Notes

Verified logbook evidence must be provided. Please see below for acceptable evidence.

Choose one of the following options

Evidence required for confirmation of Operative Experience

• This must be provided in the eLogbook format (www.elogbook.org.uk). This is available worldwide. If applying from outside the UK, please contact the e-logbook helpdesk if there are problems registering your cases. 
• Consolidation report for each specialty to include:
  • The summary sheet of the consolidation report
  • Detailing the number of procedures undertaken and the date range of the operations undertaken
  • Signed by a consultant with their full name, GMC number (or equivalent) and the date they signed it
  • Involvement in procedures can include all of those assisted or supervised, but should not include those simply Observed, or those that all UK trainees are expected to have signed off as part of their foundation competencies
  • Please do not provide a copy of your entire logbook

Only 1 consolidation report upload is permitted. Please amalgamate all specialties onto one report and have this signed by a supervisor on every page. They may need to see your whole logbook to agree to sign this sheet, but they can sign off on behalf of all specialties. Any further report sheets will not be considered for scoring. Instructions on doing this are available in the appendix along with an example document.

Evidence required for confirmation of Surgical Experience

A signed letter/document on official letterhead by the educational supervisor (or nominated consultant if on an elective placement) of your placement (elective, taster week or foundation placement in a surgical specialty) including: 

• the surgical placement and hospital
• the dates undertaken, 
• name of supervisor and their GMC no (or corresponding national medical registration equivalent)
•  

1. This cannot be a letter of acceptance that was sent before you started your elective
2. The letter must include evidence of experience you have gained/learning opportunities. For example, attendance at theatre lists or surgical clinics

A surgical taster must have covered at least 5 days in total though does not need to be undertaken in consecutive days. A 5-day surgical taster booked for 2025 will receive 0 points.

Only one document should be uploaded for surgical experience/elective/placement or taster, if more than one is uploaded only the first letter will be reviewed by the assessor panel.
 

Should the applicant have been at least a contributor to the project (categories A, B or C above), additional points will be awarded here for the presentation of the project which will be separately scored to the project itself as below.

A copy of the audit presentation must be provided to allow for presentation point scoring.

Please choose a scoring option based on a single quality improvement QI project/audit. If you have been involved in more than one, you will need to pick the QI project/audit corresponding to the highest-scoring statement which is applicable.

The purpose of this section is to evidence the process of designing a quality improvement project, gathering data and presenting it; identifying areas of change and implementing a change strategy before further collection of data and presentation of the change/improvement. Points are allocated depending on a candidate’s involvement in the process. To gain the top points for their evidence, a candidate has to demonstrate in their evidence all aspects of this.

Evidence required

1. 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:
   1. consultant name and GMC number (or corresponding national medical registration equivalent)
   2. date

And

2. 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.

To score full points the slides of a presentation must be included.

3. A letter of acceptance from the meeting where presented confirming
   1. project title
   2. presenting author
   3. date
   4. name of organiser of meeting

A copy of the meeting programme displaying the project and presenting author will also be acceptable.

Please see appendix for definition of Oral and Poster presentations. All events at which a presentation is made or journals to which an article is submitted must have an element of peer review.

All presentations require personal or virtual attendance – acceptance of a poster without attending is detailed above.

In situations where you are solely presenting or showing your poster because you have paid a fee to do so you may only select the "none/other" option. Please be wary of associations who offer this option as paying to present will not constitute a robust peer review process.

Points are not cumulative, please pick the option which you feel scores you the most points.

If you are listed in the journal text as joint first author, this will be considered equivalent to first author.

A medical meeting will typically be to an audience of doctors and/or other healthcare professionals attending away from their normal place of work for which attendees will be undertaking continuing professional development. Please the appendix for definitions of local, regional, national and international meetings.

For any publication in print to be considered for points allocation they must be PubMed (PubMed ID must be provided) cited to demonstrate that it is peer reviewed and relevant to medicine. Any candidate submitting without a PubMed searchable ID will score 0 points. Any candidate claiming a PubMed ID for an article which does not have this will potentially raise a probity concern with the interview panel.

Publications are accepted for points allocation if they have been accepted by a PubMed catalogued journal (in press) provided acceptance for publication without amendments is provided and evidence of the PubMed status of the journal is also provided.

Chapters written in medical books will not require pub med citing but rather the ISBN for the book is required as detailed below.

You must not in any circumstances claim an oral or poster presentation in this section if you have used the same quality improvement project/audit to claim points in the QI/audit section (Presentation points). Any points claimed for oral or poster presentations in this section must be completely different projects to any QI or audit work used to claim points in any other section.

For all oral and poster presentations (including prizes)

Copy of oral presentation slides/poster presentation to include:

• title of the presentation
• name of the first author/presenter

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

And

Certificate of attendance at event

If claiming for a prize, the following is also required

Copy of prize certificate or signed letter from the institution conferring the prize

For regional or local meetings, a letter from an educational supervisor with the above information is acceptable.

For all published articles or cases/letters as first author or co-author

Copy of the article (in pdf format or scanned) including PubMed ID

Or

Letter of acceptance for publication from accepting PubMed catalogued journal to include:

• the name of applicant as First author or co-author (clearly stating co-authorship)
• the confirmation of acceptance for publication without alteration
• the name of accepting journal
• the date of acceptance
• the title of the article

For Articles in Press

Letter of acceptance for publication from accepting PubMed catalogued journal to include:

• the name of the applicant as First author or co-author (clearly stating co-authorship)
• confirmation of acceptance for publication without alteration
• the name of the accepting journal
• the date of acceptance
• the title of the article
• a statement confirming that the journal is PubMed cited

For Book Chapter

Front and back cover of book to include:

• the title of the book
• the publishing house
• a ISBN number

And

Contents page showing chapter and applicant as author

For Cited Collaborative author

Copy of published article to include:

• the title of the article
• the name of the journal
• a PubMed ID

Or

Article page where collaborative authors are cited

Please note, evidence of formal feedback is required for all teaching experience.

Formal feedback describes either

Evidence of senior observation/feedback (e.g. observation of teaching assessment, developing the clinical teacher form, etc.)

Or

Collection and analysis of participants' feedback forms. Feedback forms include scores and number of people involved in providing the feedback.

Formal feedback does not need to be submitted as evidence but must be reviewed by Consultant and included in the letter they provide.

Letter from Consultant confirming involvement in designing and organising teaching programme. The letter must be signed (can be electronic signature) and include:

• consultant and their GMC number (or corresponding national medical registration equivalent)
• dates of activity

And

Evidence of formal feedback such as participant surveys or ISCP assessment. Please ensure the audience demographic is anonymised

Or

Letter from Consultant confirming involvement in delivering teaching and that participant formal feedback has been reviewed as acceptable. The letter must be signed (can be electronic signature) and include:

• consultant name and GMC number (or corresponding national medical registration equivalent)
• dates of activity

Or

A certificate for the educational event focused on learning how to teach

Please remember to check the appendix for advice on what level teaching should be categorised as. 

Surgical Conference

Any surgical themed conference either organised or accredited by one of the UK Royal Colleges of Surgeons, an international/national surgical organisation or regional deanery will be accepted. Alternatively, any surgical themed conference with evidence of CPD accreditation will also be accepted. Non-accredited or undergraduate medical school society organised conferences will not be accepted. The conference must include a peer review process for selecting posters and presentations.

International

The activity is deemed international when an applicant has delivered it in a country other than your country of residence/education at time of delivery or a recognised international meeting that rotates to different countries so then may occur in the country of your undergraduate education or residence. This rotation does not include the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.

National

The activity is deemed national level when firstly the applicant has delivered it in the country where their undergraduate education took place, or at their time of residence, e.g. if an applicant delivered a presentation in Sweden whilst undertaking their undergraduate education in Sweden, this cannot be classified as ‘International’ just because it is outside of the UK: it would be national. The UK comprises the four nations, therefore presentations within these countries by someone who is residing in the UK is considered national, regardless of the country of residence, e.g., if the presentation is delivered in Wales by an applicant based in Northern Ireland, this is classified as ‘national’.

The activity must then have taken place at an event or to an audience where the participants and the organising members are taken from a national cross section.

Regional

The activity is deemed regional if it extends beyond a local hospital, single trust or university setting; for example, the deanery or sub-deanery region or a cluster of hospitals comprising different NHS trusts. If your activity extends beyond this, then this would count as national. If one hospital hosts two different medical schools, and the candidate undertakes the teaching in that hospital, this would not count as regional, it would be considered local.

Local

The activity is deemed local if it is confined to a hospital, trust or university setting. If your activity extends beyond your local hospital/trust, this will count as regional or national as appropriate.

Virtual or Online

Online would be deemed to be delivery of teaching to an audience using a virtual platform. Evidence of the platform that was used should be supplied including, where possible, and URL or link to the activity.

Face to Face

Face to face means activity that takes place in a physical setting and does not include online or virtual attendance. 

Oral presentations

Oral presentations referred to in the document are with or without slides, in front of an audience of healthcare professionals. These can be of anything related to medicine, typically a case or case series, research or other topic. It would normally be expected to include a question-and-answer session.

Poster presentations

Poster presentations referred to are given with one poster or poster slide and sometimes a very short oral explanation with or without a question-and-answer session. If a poster is shown without an accompanying oral presentation, you can still claim points in line with the relevant statement. 

First author

The first author is usually the person who made the most significant intellectual contribution to the work. That includes designing the study, acquiring and analysing data from experiments and writing the actual manuscript. They will have met the ICJME criteria for authorship. They will be cited/listed first on the title page of the published manuscript.

Joint First author

A joint first author can claim the same points as a first author, providing the published manuscript has a statement which confirms that both authors contributed equally to the manuscript within the contributions section of the paper.

Co-author

An author who is not the first author but has met the ICJME criteria (as above) for authorship and is cited/listed on the title page of the published manuscript.

Collaborative author

Collaborators will not have met all 4 of the ICJME criteria for authorship but are acknowledged due to their contribution made. They will be listed individually as collaborators in the manuscript usually under a collaborative group name but do not appear in the author list on the title page of the manuscript. Typically, this list is found at the end of the manuscript.

• The portfolio assessors will try their best to give you the maximum points they can, and hopefully will agree with your self-assessment. However, they only have ten minutes to look through the whole portfolio, if they have to look through a large document it will make it harder to give the correct points, please take account of all of the information above when submitting
• Ask advice from colleagues who have been through the process or who take part in portfolio assessment, they will be able to guide you through how information should be presented to maximize points
• Be careful about including evidence from potentially disreputable sources – if you have been asked to pay money to present something at a meeting; or if you have paid for a “2 day course” which only has 6 hours of online activity over two days it is unlikely that the activity has been appropriately peer-reviewed. This makes it unlikely that we can award the points
• Candidates should be wary of applying an electronic signature to a document. Some PDF programs will allow the text in the signature box to be altered after they have been uploaded. In this case, assessors will not be able to accept the document and it will score 0 points
• Any patient identifiable data will be removed and score 0 points. Any candidate who uploads PID will be asked to attend a meeting with the clinical lead to explain. Please check that you have not accidently done so
• Any data that is not directly relevant to your application should be very carefully thought through. For example, if a local meeting includes evidence of your presentation in the minutes, be careful of what other information is included in those minutes and redact accordingly
• When uploading an item of evidence to a domain, a single PDF that includes each item of evidence for that domain only should be created and uploaded. This will allow the assessors to assess your evidence more easily and prevent any confusion about what points should be awarded
• Do not upload the entire portfolio to each domain, as assessors have a limited time to review each portfolio, and they may inadvertently consider only the first piece of evidence in each domain, therefore limiting how many points you can score
• Attached to the end of this document there are examples of how a logbook should be evidence, please consider them when uploading your own:

1. This logbook has been correctly signed, dated and named on the front page, it is the correct consolidation report for all specialties. The list of procedures is a consolidation and has also been correctly signed, dated and named. Note that on the front page, the candidate has filtered out any observed procedures to make sure they do not miscount. There are however only 48 procedures on the page submitted, so although the score will remain at 8 points, it is important to double check that these numbers match. Each page of the consolidation report has been signed
2. Example of certificate for a conference which demonstrates attendance, the date and the organization which delivered the conference
3. Example of a QI project with a letter appropriately signed by a consultant, a letter confirming presentation along with certificate to demonstrate that it was actually presented. To get the full points here, the candidate would also submit a copy of the slides or poster which was presented