Medical School in The United Kingdom - Immediate Post-graduation Period

Immediate Post-graduation Period

After graduation medical students enter paid employment, as a Foundation House Officer (FHO), during which they will complete the first year of Foundation Training. Foundation training focusses on the seven principles of the MMC training ethos: trainee centred, competency assessed, service based, quality assured, flexible, coached, and structured & streamlined. Graduates are still a year away from obtaining full registration with the General Medical Council. During this year trainees are legally only able to work in certain supervised jobs, as a Foundation House Officer 1 (FHO1), and cannot legally practise independently, and it is the responsibility of the medical school they attended to supervise this year until they are fully registered with the General Medical Council. Therefore, the first year of the Foundation Programme forms the final year of medical school.

Students in their final year will begin the process of applying for jobs. The new system, called the UK Foundation Programme, (implemented by the NHS Modernising Medical Careers) involves a simplified online application process, without interviews, based on a matching scheme. Students rank their preferred Foundation Schools (which often comprise a catchment area of two or three cities). They are ranked based both on the answers given on their application form, and their marks gained in examinations during their undergraduate career, the resulting score determines which job the student will get when they graduate. After being selected to a Foundation School, applicants are then selected into specific jobs by a selection procedure determined locally by each Foundation School, which may include an interview, submission of a CV or use of the score gained in MTAS

Previously, another online system called Multi-Deanery Application Process (MDAP) system was used for applications to the Foundation Programme in some areas of the UK. This was criticised in the media and in some medical publications, and was replaced by Medical Training Application System in 2006.