Ep 22: How to Turn 'My Clinics Always Run Late' Into a Safe, Strategic Weakness Answer

Welcome back to our Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast. I am here with Becky as always. Nice to see you, Becky.

Nice to see you.

Let's get stuck in. We have our question of the week from our academy student and our— what question have we got this week?

So, can you suggest some GMC documents and guidelines we need to be aware of before interview to include in our answer?

Okay, so this is probably another way that people can get distracted is on the GMC website, reading their endless documents. So, we talked about this in last week's episode, like distracting yourself with NHS reports. And I think you could go down the same rabbit hole with GMC guidance.

Yeah.

And in the end, there's not much that comes up directly about the GMC, but there's probably a few key things. One is definitely knowing the steps of duty of candor. Which the GMC actually has a really nice page of the steps that make it really easy to follow. And so when they ask you for your example of duty of candour, that's what they want to know. Do you know these steps? So that is quick, it's one page, you don't need to read more than that, just, you know, understand them. What else do you think we need to— people would need to read?

I think you probably just need to have a general overview of, you know, the good medical practice professional standards. I think have a basic awareness of what that says. You probably know that already. Yeah, we don't need to go crazy on reading all of this stuff. And then, you know, have a bit of a, you know, again, a bit of a knowledge about what does the GMC say about appraisal and revalidation.

Yeah, so I think probably the professional standards one, I haven't— have you heard of someone being asked about that directly? I don't know, I don't really think so. It's quite common.

No, I've heard Makes sense. People kind of talk about, you know, if you— people get asked questions about, let's say, probity, for example. How, you know, how do you demonstrate probity? Or, you know, how do you demonstrate honesty and integrity? You know, actually, if you get asked a question like that, you can make reference to the GMC standards, but they're not going to say to you, please, could you tell us all of the GMC standards and how you meet those?

No.

And that's never going to be an interview question. So, I think, you know, have a basic awareness, spend half an hour on their website, and then—

That will do.

That will do. Yeah.

Appraisal, though, I do think it does come up reasonably frequently. You should definitely know what the process is for appraisal. This is obviously easier if you are a consultant already, because you will have done appraisals. If you're a final year trainee applying for a job, I think it can be more intimidating being asked a question about appraisal when you not done it. So, you definitely need to have read the process. So, you know what the components are. It is aligned to ARCP. So, you have an idea of how you appraise your practice each year. But your ARCP is for your training school. Whereas your appraisal is for the GMC. And so, there's some elements of it that are slightly different. And it's really so that the GMC can make sure you are maintaining these professional standards. So I think it's worth knowing about that. There's a good explanation of the process on the GMC website. It actually has a solid website to look through stuff, so just don't get bogged down in clicking on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. I think if you cover these 3 things— do we think that's everything? I can't think of anything else that we'd need to read.

I think so. I think that's probably enough. I think the The key point around this interview prep and, you know, reading documents is that you've just got to stay reasonably focused about it and not spend days on reading stuff when you, you know, when you should be focusing on how to describe the skills that you're bringing to the job.

Yeah, one other thing is the National Training Survey. Because that is on the GMC website as well. So, it's not really a GMC document, but just thinking of things on there, I would go to the trainee survey and just have a look. Let's move on. So, we've got a golden example of the week. This is an example that one of our students has suggested that they would use. This week, we have the example that they're using for a weakness. Tell me about your biggest weakness or whatever. And the example they want to use is that their clinics always run over time. So what do you think about this as a weakness example?

I don't love it. I think it's a bit of a risky one. I think that there are a few high-risk weaknesses. One of those is around communication, because that's— you can't really be a good doctor if you've got a problem with communication. And one of them is about time management, and this, this is one of the, one of the things that demonstrates poor time management. So I think unless you can relate it to a specific time when this happens around a particular challenge and some strategies that you've put in place to address it, I think this is probably a deal-breaker weakness. What do you think?

Well, I was— I might disagree with you on that. I'm not sure. Because I think, yeah, if it's a broad problem, but usually with the weaknesses, when we get people to, like you say, pin them down and make them more specific. So I have a tendency to spend more time particularly with new patients. But what I realized was that my clinics were starting to run late. And on one occasion, I realized I'd run an hour over time and the admin staff were having to stay stay late. And so I realized something had to change. Because I think the key with the weakness is keep it focused to a specific— it's like saying, I'm not very confident to— I'm not very confident in a particular situation, like when I— or saying, I don't enjoy— I get very anxious when I present to an audience. I get very anxious when I present to a large audience at conference on a big stage is a different thing. So it's picking a specific situation where it happens, being clear what the impact is of the weakness. So the admin staff had to stay late one day. And then that's— so then you realize that something had to change. And so now you have 3 things that you do to make sure your clinics run on time. You, I don't know, whatever it is, you set yourself a stopwatch, you just have good communication with the admin staff to make sure that they know when you're aiming to finish and you stick to it, whatever it is. And so that way the focus is less on the terrible weakness. And more on how you're handling it. So, I don't know. I'm not sure it's a deal breaker. It's probably a deal breaker in its current form, but I do think there could be something in it.

I think, as ever, it's about how you tell it and how you're showing the learning from it. I think it can't be a weakness that says, look, Basically, I'm really rubbish at managing time.

Yeah.

That's just not okay. But yeah, if you can put some specific parameters around it and you're able to describe, you know, the fact that you've, you know, essentially put in some strategies that mitigate this, it's probably okay. But I think the key point about any of these examples of mistakes, weaknesses, those kind of things, conflict, it's really important to practice them out loud and just to hear how it sounds when you say it. Because you don't want to risk coming across as somebody who, you know, sounds like they can't manage time, or, you know, in other ones, you don't want to risk coming across as somebody who sounds really intolerant just because you haven't yet discovered the right way to tell it.

Mm-hmm.

So, so just practice it out loud.

Yeah, and this question in particular, it's a very, it's a vulnerable question, 'cause they're asking you something very personal about you. So kind of like the mistake one, if you come up with it on the spur of the moment, you're inevitably going to choose something that you wish you hadn't said. Weakness question is quite common. It can be phrased in different ways, but it's not uncommon to get asked it, so definitely have it prepped before.

Yeah.

And I think for any weakness question, the key is not to spend the whole time talking about the weakness, but actually to spend a lot of the time talking about how you have strategies in place to cope with the weakness, and then it becomes a slightly more positive slant on the weakness.

Yeah, exactly that.

Cool. Okay, next up we've got our interview question of the week. What question are we going to look at this week?

Okay, so this is a question that's come up recently in a consultant interview. I hadn't heard this question being asked before, so I was interested in it. And the question is, tell us about types of consultations you find difficult and how you've adapted your practice accordingly. I'm going to be honest, my initial reaction to this question was, oh my God, I hope I never get asked a question like that.

It's quite hard. Um, so a type of consultation you find difficult. Um, what do we think? Why do we think they're asking this question then? What do you think the goal is?

I think maybe they want a bit of vulnerability here. Um, a bit of kind of insight into who you are and maybe how you overcome difficulties, how you learn. I also think it's probably an opportunity to To show, you know, how, how you've developed, um, into a more senior-level thinker and somebody who can take on these more challenging consultations.

Yeah.

Um, so I think it is an opportunity for you to show learning.

Um, I like the idea that it's an opportunity to show senior, senior-level thinking because, yeah, you're kind of able to choose challenge— what your version of a challenging consultation is, um, which is not a clinical thing really, it's more about the situation. Um, so yeah, it is an opportunity to show that, that would be a good way to approach it.

Just wondering, let's really think of an example of how we might do it.

Um, well, so I, I think— so just think about like our practice or in Paeds Emergency, Difficult consultations, I would say, are where we're not able to deliver the care we want because of the system, and the family are frustrated.

Mm-hmm.

Because they might get frustrated at us, but in reality, we do understand why they're frustrated, and it's frustrating for us as well. And so you're in this kind of impossible situation where you're doing your best to give good care, but It's not always possible. Um, something like that. What do you, what do you think about something like that?

Yeah, I think that would work. I suppose I'm thinking about, you know, what, what are the more challenging consultations and conversations that we have? And it's often about things like, you know, there's, there's a, there's a young person who, you know, can't go home slash won't go home, and how, you know, how we navigate that. You know, what are the, you know, how have we, how do we deal with that? So, you know, we've learned to be honest about that. We've, you know, had to think about that as a senior team. We've got an SOP in place around it, and we have a particular pathway of escalation around that. So, you know, that's an opportunity to show, actually, this is how I deal with that with the patient and family in front of me. I can do it. I don't like it, but I can. And also I've helped, you know, to, to develop this pathway so that hopefully we're reducing the amount of times we have to have this difficult conversation. And here's my senior-level thinking because I know what the process is around escalating this and managing the risk around this particularly challenging presentation.

Yeah, this is a hard question, I think, because most people wouldn't really have thought of it before, so they're deliberately asking you something That they know you're probably going to have to come up with on the spot.

I mean, I guess that's potentially part of the other reason that they're asking this question. It's like, it's almost a version of a wildcard question, because they just want to see how you're going to cope with a question that you couldn't really have predicted.

Yeah. And part of when you've prepped a lot of questions and you know you're well prepared for your interview, is being able to say to yourself, hang on, this is a difficult question. This is not, it's not that I'm not prepared. This is actually an unusual question and it's a difficult question. And you can acknowledge that to them as well. Like, this is obviously a challenging question. And just being a bit kinder to yourself rather than spiraling into, I should have prepped this, I should know this, why don't I know this? It will make a better answer if you can just give yourself the, I guess, give yourself the confidence to recognize that it is a difficult question. Yeah.

I think with all of these questions that you initially think, my God, what am I going to do with that? Why are they asking me this? That's the real question. Why are they asking you this? Yeah. What do they need to hear from a consultant in this specialty about this question? And I think often you need to be able to show that you can do the senior-level thinking, think about the system and the process, think about risk if that's relevant here, think about, you know, things like, you know, how do you support the team? You know, how do you, um, how do you make a process around what needs to happen next? So just kind of think, think a bit more widely about how you can demonstrate a consultant-level thinking process around these questions that initially seem totally off the wall.

Yep, yep. I think that's good because in reality most people probably won't get asked this question, but they might get asked, ah, off-the-wall question that they weren't expecting.

Absolutely.

Tip and trick of the week, it's time. Let's do it. So what's our tip and trick for this week?

So the tip is how to use the CQC report. What do you tell people about this?

Well, the first thing is you definitely have to look it up because you will not be able to blag this on the day. If they ask you about the CQC report and you haven't read it, you're going to feel very stressed and embarrassed and sweaty. So, definitely look it up before. It does not take long. It's available. So, anyone going for a job in England, in Scotland, they don't have the CQC, but there is an equivalent where you can look at reports. And you want to look up the report for the CQC for your place in the hospital in England that you're applying to. And you will be able to see the latest report because they're publicly available. So it's not something that will take you a long time to find. You should read it, but really you don't need to read because the CQC report will be for the whole trust usually. So you only need to look at the part that's relevant to the service you're applying for. And you want to know what they've flagged and how recent it was, because if they've had big things flagged recently, then it's very likely that they're going to ask you about it, and it's certainly going to be top of the agenda for the management's discussions, plans, you know, ideas for where they're going to take the service, because they will have to respond to these. So yeah, really important that you know what's been identified and what the challenges were.

Absolutely. I think, you know, just recognise when it was as well. If it was, you know, if the last time they were inspected was 2016, they're probably not going to ask you about it.

Yeah.

But even, you know, if they've been inspected reasonably recently, even if they don't ask you a question directly about the CQC, you can still signpost them to the fact that you've read it. So, you know, if for example you get asked a question about, you know, what do you see as being the top 3 risks for our department and how would you help us to navigate those, then you might say, well, actually I noted on your CQC report that one of the big issues is whatever it is. And actually, I've recently done a project that addressed a similar problem to that in my previous trust, and this is, this is what we did, this was the outcome, and this is, you know, this is the kind of thing that I could, I think would work well for you. So you can, you can give them a nice little nod to the fact that you've read it. Therefore, they're clear that you've done your homework, even if you don't directly get asked a question about it. So it's, it's nice because it shows that you cared enough to To do that.

Yeah. And if there are big things, I think that's one of the things in your pre-interview visits that you can try and find. You don't need to directly say, I see the CQC said that this was rubbish, but actually when you're talking to them about challenges and what projects they're working on, it's going to be related to the CQC. And if you can say, I know I read the CQC, but also I spoke to someone on my pre-interview visits and they said you were doing X, Y, and Z, that can actually be a really good way to bring it into. And there's a couple of things that come up in almost everyone's CQC, which are stat manned training and medicine storage. So, they come up in everything. So, if that's all that they've said about your service, then the chances are they're not going to ask you about that in the interview. But if there are like big issues, then it could well come up. So yeah, definitely have a read of it.

Absolutely, no excuses there. And as you rightly said, you can't bluff your way through that one. You're just going to have to read it.

You can't, yeah. You're going to be— yeah, you're just going to look silly, and it looks like you've not bothered if you haven't read it. I mean, you won't have bothered, but it's really embarrassing because you're applying for a job, you haven't looked up the CQC report. That, and, you know, it's like not knowing the trust values. These are things that you just have to know. 'Cause otherwise it looks like you don't care and you're going to really struggle to score points in a question about the CQC report if you haven't read it. Great. Okay, we shall wrap up there. Thank you, Becky, and look forward to seeing you next time.

I'll see you next time.