Ideas for improving academic side of CV during unemployment / F3 year
I was an out of sync foundation trainee and finished F2 in February.
Since then I’ve been on my hospital’s locum bank, but shifts are competitive and can get taken within minutes of being posted, so income has been quite unstable. I’ve been applying for JCF, trust grade SHO / F3 jobs, but not been successful so far.
I think my poor cv is part of the problem. I don’t have an intercalated degree, publications or even ALS. My foundation trust funded one ALS attempt, but I missed the assessment due to illness and couldn’t afford to self-fund a second course afterwards. They wouldn’t fund it again as they said it’s not a requirement to have it for ARCP. The plan was to do it during F3 after a period of locuming, but things haven’t worked out as expected.
My current plan is to sit the MSRA and apply for GP and psychiatry training. However, I’m worried about not scoring highly enough and ending up with another year of unstable employment. I’m also not entirely sure if I want to spend the rest of my career in the NHS / in clinical work but I don’t know what alternative careers are realistic for me to aim for.
ALS is still on my to-do list once I can afford it, but can anyone suggest other stuff to bulk up my cv? Not even necessarily just for medical work. I’d consider taking out a postgraduate student loan for further study if I can find something that interests me and also benefits my cv for both medical work and also can be used for applying for non medical jobs if I ever choose to leave medicine.
Can anyone suggest worthwhile affordable things I could be doing? Like online or distance learning courses or anything else thats simple and helps secure a JCF/trust grade post after F2?
I’d be grateful for any advice from people who’ve been in a similar position.
Thanks in advance 🙏