Core Medical Training - Where should you apply?

In this article we break down the 2018 GMC National Training Survey data by region, to find out which deaneries are rated highest for overall satisfaction and workload for Core Medical Training. We also compare how competitive each deanery is to get into. Please note that due to the layout of the GMC data, we were unable to include the ratings from ACCS trainees.

Here’s the results on our number crunching:

We’ve plotted overall satisfaction against workload for each deanery, and represented the national averages as the axes for comparison. For example, all data points to the right of the y axis have a higher than national average satisfaction rating.

Deaneries were ranked by competition ratios from the most recent application round that had data available – in this case, it was from 2017. The most competitive deaneries are shown in red, those that are moderately competitive in yellow, and the least competitive in green. However, it is important to look at trends of competition ratios from the past few years as it can be misleading to focus on data from a single year:

‍

Key Takeaways

Wessex is the highest rated for satisfaction.

Wessex, Scotland and West Midlands lead the way for satisfaction, and have good workload ratings. Scotland is consistently one of the most competitive deaneries. However, Wessex and West Midlands have competition ratios closer to 1.

North East has had competition ratios <1 for the past two years. However, it’s ranked well for satisfaction and workload.

At the other end of the spectrum, North West Deanery and Yorkshire and the Humber have the worst satisfaction rates, and perform poorly in their workload ratings.

‍

London is consistently the most competitive.

For the last three years in a row, London has been the most competitive region, with a competition ratio of 2.7 in 2017 – however, trainees rank it as having the worst workload of all the deaneries and a lower than average satisfaction rating.

‍

The most competitive deaneries are not well rated.

With the exception of Scotland, the top 5 most competitive deaneries in 2017 were actually rated below average on overall satisfaction.