Abstract
Background
Despite the completion of 5 or 6 years of undergraduate study, the transition to a newly qualified foundation year 1 doctor (FY1) in the UK has been recognised as challenging. We created a specific FY1 Induction Programme and aimed to evaluate its effectiveness on perceived confidence and preparedness for newly qualified doctors by assessing their responses to surveys before and after the delivery of the course.
Methods
Pre- and post-course surveys were administered at the start and end of the course, respectively. All questions were subjective and used a 5-point Likert scale (1, not at all confident, to 5, definitely confident) to assess perceived confidence in a range of questions before and after the course.
Results
A total of 35 participants completed the pre-course survey and 41 completed the post-course survey. For all questions, there was a statistically significant increase in confidence ratings. All 41 participants completing the post-course questionnaire responded ‘yes’ to feeling more confident to be an FY1 after completing the programme compared to before (100%).
Conclusions
Our study, along with previously published work, has shown a repeatable positive effect with implementation of transition courses for newly qualified doctors. Future research in this area could focus on more large-scale standardised learning events incorporated by different trusts prior to commencement as an FY1, to see if the positive effects found in our study are translatable across other regions.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the following people at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust; Debra Baker for her assistance with course organisation and the other faculty members (Professor Helen Steed, Miss Nuha Yassin, Dr Michael Norrel, Dr Swetha Byravan, Dr Emily Fox, Dr Priya Sarkar, Dr Elizabeth Bentley, Dr Bethany Gorman, Dr Milad Baburi and Dr Sonika Sethi) for their time in teaching on the programme.
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KKG, NB and KJ were involved in conceptualisation and in designing the programme. KKG and NB facilitated organisation and delivery of the programme including survey design and distribution as well as formal analysis of the data. KKG was involved in writing the original draft. All authors reviewed, edited and authorised the manuscript prior to submission.
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Our study was authorised by the trust research and development team (Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust) who advised that ethical approval was not required.
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Gupta, K.K., Bhamra, N. & Jolly, K. The Effectiveness of a Specific Foundation Year 1 Induction Programme in Improving Confidence for Newly Qualified Doctors in the UK. Med.Sci.Educ. 32, 1073–1076 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-022-01616-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-022-01616-8