2024 Core Surgical Training Self-Assessment Scoring 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

Notes

Proof of attendance 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)
• 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. Any further will not be considered for scoring. Your consolidation sheet can be signed by your most recent consultant surgeon supervisor. They may, if they find the evidence acceptable, sign on behalf of all specialties.

Evidence required for confirmation of surgical conferences

• Copy of conference attendance certificate detailing the below. 
  • Name of applicant.
  • Name of conference.
  • Organising body.
  • Date of conference.
  • Where appropriate detailing CPD points.

1. If no detail of accreditation is on the certificate of attendance, then a letter from the organiser needs to be provided detailing accreditation.
2. Please refer to appendix for definition of a Surgical Conference

Evidence required for confirmation of surgical experience

Evidence required for confirmation of Surgical elective 

A signed letter/document on official letterhead by your educational supervisor including:

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

This cannot be a letter of acceptance that was sent before you started your elective.

Evidence required for confirmation of Surgical placement

A signed letter/document on official letterhead by your educational supervisor including:

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

or

• a print out copy of your foundation placements signed as above

Candidates should note that the verification panel does not have access to Oriel so cannot see previous placements.

Evidence required for confirmation of Surgical taster

A signed letter/document on official letterhead by your educational supervisor including:

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

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 2024 will receive 0 points.

Only 1 document should be uploaded for each surgical conference (certificate of attendance for each conference in a single document) surgical elective/placement or taster. Any further documents uploaded will not be considered by assessors.

Should the applicant have been at least a contributor to the project (awarded 4 more points above), Additional points will be awarded here for the presentation of the project which will be separately scored to the project itself as below.

In order for you to score 4 or more points, you must have personally been involved in at least 2 cycles of the audit or quality improvement project. If your project has only completed a single cycle or you have only been involved in one of the cycles, then a maximum of 2 points can be awarded. If your project has not yet completed a single cycle no points can be awarded.

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 same Quality Improvement/Clinical Audit may be also put forward in the publications domain if it may score in that domain should the applicant wish.

Evidence required

Copy of audit project presentation outlining scope and impact (findings and improvements achieved) of project 
or

summary of the project detailing scope and impact of the project.

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

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:

• the name of the consultant and GMC number (or corresponding national medical registration equivalent)
• the date 

and (for presentation points only)

A letter of acceptance from the meeting where presented confirming:

• the project title
• the presenting author
• the date

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

Oral presentations referred to 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 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.

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 you may only select the “none/other” option.

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. The exception to this is the option for a local meeting where the audience is predominantly internal to that workplace. 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.

Cited collaborative authors must have publication in print, not in press.

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

• Copy of oral presentation slides/poster presentation to include:
  • the title of the presentation
  • the name of the first author/presenter or author list to include applicant if not first author

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

• the certificate of attendance at the 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

• A 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
  • an article page where collaborative authors are cited

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

Formal feedback describes either

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

All postgraduate degrees and qualifications will be defined based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) (UN International Family of Economic and Social Classifications).

Substantial training is defined as formal training either face to face or virtual that should be of at least 2 full days in duration. Formal training is typically delivered in an organized and structured context provided in educational institutions such as universities and royal colleges.

• Copy of Degree/Postgraduate qualification Certificate to include:
  • the applicant name
  • the awarding institution
  • the date of the award

or

• Copy of certificate confirming attendance at substantial training in teaching methods to include:
  • the applicant name
  • the awarding institution
  • the date of the award

or

• Copy of certificate confirming attendance in teaching methods to include:
  • the applicant name
  • the awarding institution
  • the date of the award

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.

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.

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.

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.