Self assessment guidance (OMFS)

A portfolio self assessment scoring process will be used as part of the national recruitment process for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS).

Candidates are initially requested to self-score their portfolio submitting their scores together with supporting evidence via the NHS England online portal.

The process is outlined in more detail below.

Patient Identifiable Data (PID):

• No uploaded evidence should identify patients. This includes, for example, thank you cards/letters from patients/families and hospital numbers. Please ensure you anonymise such information when uploading evidence
• Instances where patient identifiable data is found in an applicant’s evidence may be reported to the GMC and further action may be taken
• For more information on PID, please refer to the GMC’s confidentiality guidance pages

Self assessment

• This document will provide details of the domains, marking range and points available in the self assessment and evidence verification required for the OMFS national recruitment process
• Please upload a copy of your CV as your first uploaded evidence to give the assessors a summary overview of your career and achievements
• You must provide suitable evidence for your achievements in individual domains to be awarded points and this evidence must be uploaded to the Evidence Verification Portal
• Where possible examples of evidence you could upload to confirm your score is indicated. Please note that the lists of evidence are not exhaustive and are only for illustrative purposes. It is not possible to be prescriptive about what evidence will be acceptable to justify your selection; the key is that it is sufficient for the assessors reviewing your folder to be confident that you have claimed correctly. A certified, authenticated translation should be provided for any documentation which is not written in English
• There is no set number of years within which you need to have completed the achievements listed, however any achievements claimed must have been gained after commencing your medical/dental (or first undergraduate) degree, such as, achievements from school or before university cannot be claimed
• There is no set score you must achieve to be appointable in the portfolio assessment (provided you meet the essential criteria for appointment laid out in the OMFS personal specification document). The portfolio score will count toward your ranking if you are successful in your interview for appointment
• At time of application, all candidates will be required to complete a self assessment score based on their own achievements in various domains. This is mandatory and candidates will be unable to submit their application without completing this. Please ensure that you answer each question correctly to the best of your knowledge. You must ensure that all questions answered within the ‘self-assessment’ are accurate at the time of submission
• When determining which response to select you should not select an answer based on qualifications not yet given, courses not yet taken. All achievements should be completed at time of application unless the specific scoring section below indicates otherwise
• The self assessment score cannot be changed at any stage between application and interview. Once you have submitted your application, you will no longer be able to amend the 'self assessment' section of your application. Therefore, you should check it thoroughly before you submit your application
• The self assessment information you provide on Oriel will be stored electronically according to the scoring system outlined below
• Candidates will be required to provide evidence via the evidence upload portal for each declaration of achievement made in the self assessment in their application. This must be uploaded during the upload timeframe specified. Further guidance on how to upload your evidence will follow in due course
• Evidence to support your self assessment score can only be accepted via the dedicated upload portal. Evidence provided by any other means will not be accepted
• Each achievement can only be used to score points once in your self assessment. One achievement cannot be used to score points in multiple domains so do not upload a particular piece of evidence more than once
• If evidence for a domain is not uploaded to the portal before the deadline, then the evidence verification panel will award a score of zero for that domain
• If the verifiers feel that there is insufficient evidence for the number of points you have claimed in your self assessment, they will reduce your score in that section to a number that they feel is appropriate
• Any instance of candidates trying to gain an unfair advantage by over claiming scores for and/or exaggerating their achievements will be taken extremely seriously. This could lead to an application either being marked down, removed from the recruitment process, or, in more serious cases, could be reported as a probity matter to the GMC
• Please bear in mind the GMC's Good Medical Practice guidelines on probity including "You must always be honest about your experience, qualifications and position, particularly when applying for posts." (GMC Good Practice)
• Please note that it is the candidate's sole discretion as to which response they select in the self assessment. Under no circumstances will the National Recruitment Office will be able to advise you which option to choose
• Apart from OMFS educational activity and links to specialty domain, if you have more than one achievement within a single domain then you should only claim points for whichever single achievement would give you the highest score
• You are advised to upload information to evidence the points you think your achievements merit but once you have uploaded sufficient evidence to do so avoid adding further information on that domain/question
• Verification of candidates' self assessment scores will be done by a panel of assessors prior to the interview date. Any significant discrepancies in the portfolio scoring will be reviewed and verified by the recruitment lead for consistency
• The candidate will be notified of any changes to their self-assessment score with an explanation of the changes

Self assessment scoring

Intercollegiate examination 

OMFS educational activity and links to specialty

In this section you can claim points for each option you may have undertaken.
 

Surgical courses (excluding OMFS courses)
 

Examples of accepted courses include:

• Basic Surgical Skills (BSS)
• Advance Trauma Life Support (ATLS) must be current
• Care of the Critically Ill Surgical Patient (CCrISP)
• Systematic Training in Acute Illness Recognition Training (START Surgery)
• Head and Neck anatomy / surgical dissection courses
• Other Royal College core surgical courses (excluding Exam Prep courses)
• ASiT surgical courses
• British Medical Association surgically themed courses

Surgical courses (OMFS)

Evidence of OMFS surgical experience

All OMFS surgical experience should be evidenced by a validated logbook summary sheets that have been signed by a consultant showing their name, GMC number and the date of validation. Please do not provide a copy of your entire logbook.

Scoring guidance

Performed means coded P, S-TU, S-TS in the ISCP/eLogbook

• Dentoalveolar surgery including emergencies (Performed/ Assisted)
  • <25 cases: 1 point
  • 25-50 cases: 2 points
  • 50-75 cases: 3 points
  • 75-100 cases: 4 points
  • >100 cases: 5 points
• Trauma including emergencies (Performed/Assisted)
  • <25 cases: 1 point
  • 25-50 cases: 2 points
  • 50-75 cases: 3 points
  • 75-100 cases: 4 points
  • >100 cases: 5 points
• Other (Performed/Assisted)
  • <25 cases: 1 point
  • 25-50 cases: 2 points
  • 50-75 cases: 3 points
  • 75-100 cases: 4 points
  • >100 cases: 5 points

Evidence of surgical experience other than OMFS

All surgical experience should be evidenced by a validated logbook summary sheets that have been signed by a consultant showing their name, GMC number and the date of validation.

Please do not provide a copy of your entire logbook.

Scoring guidance

Performed means coded P, S-TU, S-TS in the ISCP/eLogbook

• < 10 cases in a specialty/specialties: 1 point
• 10-20 cases in multiple specialties and/or 20-30 cases in a single specialty: 2 points
• 20-30 cases in multiple specialties and/or 30-40 cases in a single specialty: 3 points
• 30-40 cases in multiple specialties and/or 40-50 cases in a single specialty: 4 points
• > 40 cases in multiple specialties and/or >50 cases in a single specialty: 5 points

Postgraduate degrees and qualifications (excluding intercollegiate exams)

Please evidence with certificate.

It is not allowed to claim points for partially completed qualifications.  

Prizes and awards

Examples of acceptable evidence include original letter from medical school / Trust / Foundation School or original certificate.

Please note that where a stated percentage is given you must be able to demonstrate this to claim that option.

If your medical school do not specify this, you will need to contact them to ask whether they can supply something in writing to verify that your performance met the specified criteria.

Quality Improvement Projects/Clinical Audit

Acceptable evidence for each QIP/audit must include signed audit form or letter from audit lead/supervising consultant confirming the role in the QIP/audit and authenticated evidence of completion and presentation (certificate or letter).

If you can demonstrate active involvement in both cycles of a closed loop audit, each cycle would count, for example, 2 cycles count as 2 audits.

Evidence needs to clearly identify both pieces of work.

You cannot, under any circumstances, claim an oral or poster presentation of the same QIP/audit scored here in the presentation (or any other) section of the application form.

Presentations

Evidence must include summary of presentation and certificate of presentation (slides will not be accepted).

You cannot, 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.

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.

If a poster is shown without an accompanying oral presentation, you can still claim points in line with the relevant statement.

'Shown' should be considered to mean a significant role in the production and content of the poster and attendance at any question-and-answer poster session during the conference/meeting at which it is displayed.

What if I did not personally do the presentation or show a poster?

If you were a significant contributor to a presentation but did not personally present it, you can only claim points if this was in a national or international medical meeting by choosing the relevant option.

In the case of a poster, if you did not 'show' the poster but played a significant role in the production and content, as with presentations, you can only claim points where this was for a national or international medical meeting.

National level presentation

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, for example, if the presentation is delivered in Wales by an applicant based in Northern Ireland, this is classified as 'national'.

Publications

Examples of acceptable evidence include photocopy of the abstract of the publication clearly showing authorship and PMID for each paper, or a web address for the article, or copy of acceptance letter. Front cover of book showing authorship and name of publishing house.

PubMed citations

Any item included under an option stating 'PubMed-cited' must be cited in PubMed to demonstrate that it is both peer-reviewed and relevant to medicine. Where possible, you should include this PubMed reference when giving details of publications. Systematic reviews, for example, Cochrane can be regarded as equivalent to an original research publication. The only exception to this is in the case of published medical books, which do not require PubMed citation.

What can I score for submitted articles?

Whilst achievements not yet gained cannot usually be claimed, an exception to this are any articles/publications which have been completely accepted, no further alterations are required, and are just waiting to be published. Submitted articles which have not been accepted cannot gain any marks in this section because it is not known if it will be published.

What is a co-author?

This means that you are on the list of authors, but you are not first or joint-first author.

Collaborative research

Qualification in Medical Education

Postgraduate Medical Teaching experience

 Leadership and management

Examples of acceptable evidence include minutes from meetings, a letter confirming your appointment to a role, a paper/report you have produced, formal feedback from colleagues.

However, this is not an exhaustive list. Your evidence should be able to demonstrate that you held/have held the role for the six-month minimum.

Role related to the provision of healthcare

The scoring options which state 'roles related to the provision of healthcare' should not include roles such as being the captain of a medical school/hospital sports team/social society as this relates to that activity and not to the field of healthcare.

However, you can use these for the non-medical voluntary capacity options if they meet the other criteria.

Positive impact

To score points in this role you must be able to evidence how you have made a difference in your leadership/management role.

Timing/duration of role

The point scoring options can only be used for roles which you have held since starting your first undergraduate degree (either your primary medical/dental degree or a prior degree) and for a minimum of six months.

Outstanding achievement