School Student
What's surgery like?
Portfolio
A portfolio is similar to an expanded, extended CV and whatever career route you decide to follow in surgery, you should maintain a portfolio throughout.
There are a number of tools available to help you, such as the electronic portfolio available through the ISCP. You are likely to be asked to show your portfolio at the selection centre or interview when you are applying for posts in the training pathway. If you decide to undertake career grade posts, you will also find your portfolio invaluable when going through appraisals to progress through the specialty doctor grade. Furthermore, if you later decide to apply for a CESR, your portfolio will be a central part of your application.
While you may not be required to show your portfolio to anyone before you attend interview or selection centre, it will be useful to have compiled your portfolio before this point so that you are familiar with it and can use it to help write your applications.
To compile your portfolio, you should organise relevant career information in a ring binder or similar, with a contents page and index tabs to ensure it is easier for both you and the selection centre assessor to navigate. You may have to refer to specific evidence so your portfolio should be logically and clearly laid out for easy access. The portfolio and the evidence it contains will support your application, any subsequent interviews and your ongoing earning when you have begun your post.
Your portfolio should show your commitment to surgery. In addition to including a record and evidence of the activities you have undertaken (as outlined above), you should ensure your logbook is up to date – either paper-based or in electronic form such as that from the ISCP. You should make sure you include reflective examples from your work as well as documentary evidence of any extra activities you have undertaken.
Types of evidence included in your portfolio might include:
- logbook of clinical activity
- trainers’ reports
- audits
- written workplace assessments
- list of competencies signed by supervising consultant
- assessments such as DOPS and mini-CEX (see ISCP website)
Example portfolios are available from websites such as the foundation portfolio on the MMC website. These will give you structures to use for recording but you should remember it is your personal input that is important.
In your portfolio, it will be useful to produce a summary table listing all of the competencies required (i.e those listed on the ISCP website) how you have achieved them and where in your portfolio evidence can be found.
