STP Support | Not in the mood for competencies?

This post is the opinion and experience of the author

It was around 10 years ago now that I joined the STP in medical physics. It was a very interesting time: for me as it was my first full-time job and in a field I’d wanted to work in since I’d heard about it; and also for the healthcare science community. The  STP was brand new; this was the first year it had run in most specialisms. 

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A day at the clinic

The STP training is recorded by signing things off for your e-portfolio and your university assessments. Work-based training involves competencies, case-based discussions (CBD), direct observation of practical skills (DOPS) or observed clinical events (OCE).  For each rotation or specialist module, you have to do all the competencies involved and a combination of DOPS or OCES, and CBDs.

As part of my Bioinformatics rotation, and because I usually don’t like to do things the easy way, I got to go observe at a Genomic Counselling clinic which is one of the OCEs of this rotation; “Attend a clinic as an observer and explain your role to the patient”. I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to see how genomic councelling works and get some more clinical experience. I contacted our genomic counselling team, they were very accommodating and agreed for me to observe at an adult endocrine clinic. The majority of endocrine conditions referred to genomic councelling involved panel testing so we thought it would be easier to explain what a bioinformatician does in that context.

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