About the Programme

This programme is designed to support foundation doctors through the Foundation Programme. The programme will guide you through the foundation years one, two and beyond until the point you enter specialty training.

We also provide key courses and certificates in leadership, medical education, quality improvement and training in teaching to help best prepare you for the next steps in your career.

What F|Docs plus provides:

  • Access to regular clinical and non-clinical webinars
  • A clinical reference library
  • Certificates in leadership, medical education, quality improvement and training in teaching
  • Weekly teaching from senior clinicians
  • Podcasts
  • 20+ online modules
  • Access to conferences
  • Discounts on further courses and opportunities

About the Instructors

Professor Derek Gallen

Head of F|Docs Programme

Over the last decade of my career I introduced and looked after the foundation programme in the UK. We managed to get it embedded in UK medicine and the NHS. However there is still a lot of work left to be done. I realised when I retired that we needed to be more innovative with technology in Medical and Healthcare education and try greater consistency and improve the experience of the Foundation Programme. When the Medics.Academy team invited me to lead the development of the  F|Docs programme, I saw this as an opportunity to work with this innovative, young team to bring apply technology and entrepreneurial ideas to the NHS. The team have worked hard over the last 2 years since we came up with the first concepts. They have developed a programme that genuinely tries to support Foundation Schools and Doctors, applying consistency of teaching and supporting individuals to achieve their goals as early stage professionals. The impact of COVID19 did not dent this team, it spurred them on to rethink completely what they were doing and rapidly changed their programme to into something that responded to the needs of students and junior doctors alike. The speed and diligence with which they worked, made me proud to see that the NHS, it’s staff and society generally are in good hands. The programme that Hiba and the F|Docs team are rolling out is something that 3 years ago I wouldn’t have thought possible, but these young professionals are innovating at a pace, and focussing on their colleagues who are students and junior doctors in a way that really is impressive. The feedback and engagement we are seeing is incredible and I am incredibly proud to have led the birth of this initiative and continue to nurture it to have a significant impact on the clinicians concerned and the wider NHS that will benefit. 

Dr Hiba Khan

Chief Revenue Officer at Medics.Academy

Dr Hiba Khan, Clinical Entrepreneur and Chief Revenue Officer at Medics.Academy. Dr Khan has a background in entrepreneurship, innovation and solutions in healthcare and was recently awarded an Innovation Fellowship at Mid and South Essex NHS Trust to continue this work. Dr Khan runs the development function at Medics.Academy and oversees a global team of executives. Dr Khan also has experience in governance as Vice-Chair of the Board at Queen Mary University Students’ Union and Chair of their Audit and Risk Committee as well as being Governor on the Board of the University of West London Workforce Committee and on the Board of Melanin Medics. Dr Khan has won several awards for research and performance in her clinical roles, a national award in quality improvement, two consecutive “Outstanding Trainee” awards and a gold medal in regional weightlifting.

About the Authors

Dr Camilla Rhead

Author

Camilla is a junior doctor working in London. She is currently taking a year out after her foundation training before commencing core medical training. She has been awarded prizes during her foundation training for teaching, clinical excellence and quality improvement. She plans to pursue a career in gastroenterology and this year will be doing research looking at decompensated liver disease.Outside of medicine, Camilla is a keen runner, skier, sailer and tag rugby player. She also enjoys travelling and will be spending a lot of this year jetting off around the world.

Dr. Stephen Hamshere

Dr Stephen Hamshere is a Registrar in Cardiology at Imperial NHS Trust and an Honorary Research Fellow at Barts Health NHS Trust. 

Dr. Emma Cox

Chief Product Officer

Dr. Emma Cox is the Chief Product Officer at Medics.Academy and an Emergency Medicine Registrar. She manages and leads multiples teams of engineers, designers and product specialists across two continents. She is passionate about improving healthcare. Her particular areas of focus are technology, education and working conditions. Her previous experience includes being an Elected Public Governor for The Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, a board member of a national union, and an Academic Lead for University College London Medical School. Her current roles include being an honorary lecturer for UCLan, a Peer Reviewer for the UKRI, a Committee Member of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s National Sustainable Working Practices Committee, and a NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur.

Course Curriculum

  • 1

    Introduction

    • About the Programme

    • Message from Professor Derek Gallen

    • Message from Dr Hiba Khan

    • Higher Learning Outcomes

    • Foundation Programme Curriculum Support

    • Feedback on the Curriculum Support

    • Table of Contents
  • 2

    Weekly Teaching

    • Surviving F1 - Dr Abi Pomeranc & Dr Yusuf Karmali

    • Skills and Top Tips for Shaping Your Own Portfolio Career - Dr Amrita Sen Mukherjee

    • Recognition, Assessment and Initial Management of the Acutely Ill Patient - Dr Stacey Bryan

    • Phone Skills: What to do and what not to do! - Dr Rani Robson

    • Pulmonary Embolism - Dr Carina Dowson

    • Common Scenarios for an F1 Doctor - Dr Alex Harding

    • Recognition and Management of the Deteriorating Patient - Dr Adam Collins

    • Acute Medical Emergencies: Shortness of Breath - Dr Junaid Fukuta

    • Bleeding in Pregnancy - Dr Zahra Ameen

    • What a Radiologist Wants from a Referral - Dr Scott Andrews

    • The Acute Abdomen - Mr James Olivier

    • Acutely Presenting Obstetrics & Gynae Patients - Dr Stacey Picart

    • Working in Healthcare Teams - Dr Roshni Beeharry

    • Freedom to Speak Up - Dr Henrietta Hughes

    • Know Your Rights - Dr Sarah Hallet

    • Essentials of Prescribing - Dr George Miller

    • The Most Common Mistakes Foundation Doctors Make - Dr Michael Lim

    • Death Certification - Dr Ali Jawad

    • Maternal Medicine

    • Abnormal Menses

    • Typical Conditions of the Nose (ENT)

    • How to Assess the Sick Child - Dr Hoong Wei

    • The Fundamentals of Blood Transfusion

    • Typical Conditions of the Ear (ENT)

    • Paediatric Basic Life Support & Common Hereditary Conditions

    • Fundamentals of the Heart

    • Orthopaedics: The Knee

    • Leadership and Human Factors in Healthcare

    • Managing Anxiety and Uncertainty in Extraordinary Times - Dr Sue Watson
  • 3

    HLO 1: Clinical assessment: assess patient needs in a variety of clinical settings including acute, non-acute and community

    • Essential Paediatric Assessment

    • How to Assess the Sick Child

    • Hereditary Haemochromatosis

    • Soundbites

    • Soundbite 1: Indications for Urgent Dialysis

    • Soundbite 2: Terminal Motor Branches of the Facial Nerve

    • Soundbite 3: Causes of a High Anion Gap in Metabolic Acidosis

    • Soundbite 4: The SBAR Handover

    • Soundbite 5: Documenting the Ward Round

    • Soundbite 6: Non GI Causes of Vomiting

    • Soundbite 7: Causes of New-Onset Atrial Fibrillation

    • Soundbite 8: The Surgical Sieve as an Approach to Differential Diagnoses

    • Soundbite 9: Causes of Delirium

    • Soundbite 10: The SAD PERSONS Scale for Assessment of Suicide Risk

    • Soundbite 11: Causes of Hyperkalaemia

    • Soundbite 12: Causes of Hypokalaemia

    • Soundbite 13: Treatment of an Acute Myocardial Infarction

    • Soundbite 14: Chest X-Ray Findings in Heart Failure

    • Soundbite 15: Features of a Life-Threatening Asthma Attack

    • Soundbite 16: Reversible Causes of a Cardiac Arrest - 4Hs and 4Ts

    • Soundbite 17: Muscles of the Hand Supplied by the Median Nerve

    • Soundbite 18: Glasgow Score for the Severity of Acute Pancreatitis

    • Soundbite 19: Signs of Chronic Liver Disease

    • Soundbite 20 - Presentation of Acute Limb Ischaemia - 6Ps

    • Soundbite 21: CURB-65 Score for Severity of Community-Acquired Pneumonia

    • Soundbite 22: Causes of Acute Pancreatitis

    • Soundbite 23: Signs of Cerebellar Disease

    • Soundbite 24: Indications for a CT Head in Adults Presenting with Head Injury

    • Soundbite 25: Management of Acute Pulmonary Oedema

    • Soundbite 26: SOCRATES Tool for the Assessment of Pain

    • Soundbite 27: Disease Checklist for a Patient's Past Medical History

    • Soundbite 28: Seronegative Spondyloarthropathies

    • Soundbite 29: Symptoms of Aortic Stenosis

    • Soundbite 30: Order of Heart Valve Auscultation Sites
  • 4

    HLO 1: Clinical prioritisation: recognise and, where appropriate, initiate urgent treatment of deterioration in physical and mental health

    • Leadership and the Crash Team
  • 5

    HLO 1: Holistic planning: diagnose and formulate treatment plans (with appropriate supervision) that include ethical consideration of the physical, psychological and social needs of the patientntitled chapter

    • An Introduction to Critical Care

    • Neurology: Asking the right questions

    • The Fundamentals of Blood Transfusion for the Non-Haematologist
  • 6

    HLO 1: Communication and care: provide clear explanations to patients/carers, agree a plan and deliver healthcare advice and treatment where appropriate

    • Top Tips for Getting It Right on the Phone
  • 7

    HLO 1: Continuity of care: contribute to safe ongoing care, both in and out of hour

    • Pre-hospital Care
  • 8

    HLO 1: Feedback

    • Feedback
  • 9

    HLO 2: Sharing the vision: work confidently within the multiprofessional team and, where appropriate,guide the team to deliver a consistently high standard of patient care based on sound ethical principles

    • Working in Healthcare Teams

    • Preparing for F1
  • 10

    HLO 2: Fitness for practise: develop the skills necessary to manage your own personal wellbeing

    • Wellbeing and Self-care

    • Freedom to Speak Up
  • 11

    HLO 2: Upholding values: act as a responsible employee, including speaking up when others do not act in accordance with the values of the healthcare system

    • How We Change the Culture of Medicine

    • Learn or Die: Performance Under Pressure
  • 12

    HLO 2: Quality improvement: take an active part in processes to improve the quality of care

    • Introduction to Quality Improvement

    • Disruptive Transparency
  • 13

    HLO 2: Teaching the teacher: teach and present effectively

    • Introduction to medical education

    • Teach the Teacher

    • Why we teach

    • Roles of the clinical teacher

    • The essence of teaching

    • Student needs analysis

    • The good clinical teacher

    • Plan and be S.M.A.R.T.

    • Bloom's taxonomy

    • Putting planning into practice

    • The history of teaching

    • Utilising teaching models

    • Interpersonal skills

    • Adapting for group work

    • Delivering lectures

    • Constructive feedback - the missing link

    • Conclusion

    • Test yourself

    • Reading material

    • The seven learning styles

    • Reading material

    • Publishing your work

    • Feedback Form

    • Presentation Skills
  • 14

    HLO 2: Feedback

    • Feedback
  • 15

    HLO 3: Ethics and law: demonstrate professional practice in line with the curriculum, GMC and other statutory requirements, through development of a professional portfolio

    • Mental Health - Legal Frameworks

    • Know Your Rights
  • 16

    HLO 3: Continuing professional development: develop practice, including the acquisition of new knowledge and skills through experiential learning; acceptance of feedback and, if necessary, remediation; reading and, if appropriate, through research

    • Upcoming Events
  • 17

    HLO 3: Understanding medicine: understand the breadth of medical practice and plan a career

    • Academic Careers Beyond AFP - Part 1

    • Academic Careers Beyond AFP - Part 2

    • Navigating the Early Stages of a Career whilst Developing Leadership Opportunities

    • Skills and Top Tips for Shaping Your Own Portfolio Career

    • Survival Guide for O&G: Things Every SHO Should Know

    • Doctor to Author
  • 18

    HLO 3: Feedback

    • Feedback
  • 19

    e-Portfolio Webinar Series

    • Introduction to Horus e-Portfolio Prep Series

    • Horus e-Portfolio Prep Series - Part 1

    • Horus e-Portfolio Prep Series - Part 2
  • 20

    Mental Health including mental illness

    • Motivating Behaviour Change

    • The Mental Health Act
  • 21

    Health Promotion and Public Health

    • Controlling an Infectious Disease Outbreak

    • The Management of Ebola Virus Disease

    • The Impact of Climate Change on Health

    • Vaccines
  • 22

    Simulation

    • Atrial Fibrillation
  • 23

    Leadership

    • An Introduction to Leadership in Healthcare

    • Excellence in Healthcare Through Leadership

    • Leadership and Organisational Responsibility at an Early Stage

    • The 6 Styles of Leadership

    • Diversity and Inclusion in Leadership

    • Negotiation Skills

    • The Use of Gantt Charts for Managing a Project
  • 24

    Quality Improvement Methodology

    • Introduction to Quality Improvement

    • The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare's Tutorial on Sustainable Quality Improvement in Healthcare

    • The Use of Gantt Charts for Managing a Project

    • Using the Business Model Canvas & KPI for Clinical Innovations
  • 25

    How to Get into the Academic Foundation Programme

    • Analysing Systematic Reviews - What are the authors addressing?

    • Searching for papers

    • Selection criteria

    • Were the included papers valid?

    • Included studies

    • Results

    • Diagnostic Accuracy Studies - Population

    • Gold standard diagnostic test

    • Comparison

    • Merits and limitations

    • Methods

    • Analysing RCTs and Therapy Studies - Introduction

    • Randomisation

    • Groups of patients

    • Allocated treatment

    • Who started?

    • Double blind?

    • Analysing Prognostic Studies - Introduction

    • Staging

    • Follow-up

    • Outcome criteria

    • Patient characteristics

    • Validity

    • Statistics - Introduction

    • Relative risk

    • Absolute risk

    • Relative risk reduction

    • Number needed to treat

    • Confidence intervals

    • Sensitivity and specificity

    • Positive and negative predictive values

    • Systematic reviews and forest plots 1

    • Systematic reviews and forest plots 2

    • Pre-test probability

    • The likelihood ratio

    • Getting Published
  • 26

    Careers Guidance

    • The Junior Doctor Contract

    • Navigating the Early Stages of a Career whilst Developing Leadership Opportunities

    • Skills and Top Tips for Shaping Your Own Portfolio Career

    • Survival Guide for O&G: Things Every SHO Should Know
  • 27

    Integration of acute illness into chronic disease management and multiple comorbidities

    • Common Scenarios for an F1

    • Atrial Fibrillation

    • Cystic Fibrosis

    • Polycystic Kidney Disease

    • Trisomy 21

    • Ear (ENT)

    • Nose (ENT)

    • Genital Warts

    • Infections in Pregnancy

    • Ophthalmology for the Non-Ophthalmologist
  • 28

    Frailty

    • Safeguarding of Adults
  • 29

    End-of-Life Care

    • A-Z of Palliative Care

    • Death Certification

    • Palliative Care
  • 30

    High-Risk Prescribing

    • Essentials of Prescribing

    • Common Mistakes

    • The Fundamentals of Blood Transfusion for the Non-Haematologist
  • 31

    Teaching Skills

    • Expanding Access to Medical Education
  • 32

    Patient Safety

    • Learn or Die: Performance Under Pressure

    • Human Factors in Healthcare

    • Managing Anxiety and Uncertainty in Extraordinary Times

    • Surviving F1

    • Information Governance
  • 33

    Safeguarding

    • Safeguarding of Adults
  • 34

    Use of New Technologies and the Digital Agenda

    • Innovating in Medicine during the Foundation Programme

    • CliniTECS - Digital Healthcare

    • The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare's Tutorial on Sustainable Quality Improvement in Healthcare

    • Introduction to Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

    • Introduction to Data

    • From Data to Data Science

    • Foundation for Data Science

    • A Beginner’s Guide to the Data Science Pipeline

    • Informatics, Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence

    • What is Artificial Intelligence

    • Key AI Terminology

    • AI in Healthcare: an Overview

    • Artificial intelligence-enabled healthcare delivery

    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine: Today and Tomorrow

    • Current state of AI in healthcare

    • The state of artificial intelligence-based FDA-approved medical devices and algorithms: an online database

    • An Introduction to Machine Learning

    • How Does a Machine Learn

    • Machine Learning in Medicine

    • A short guide for medical professionals in the era of artificial intelligence

    • Machine Learning Problems

    • Machine Learning Workflow

    • The 7 steps of machine learning

    • How to build your first machine learning model

    • An overview and case study of the clinical AI model development life cycle for healthcare systems

    • How to develop machine learning models for healthcare

    • Machine Learning Course in R: Session One

    • How to install R and RStudio

    • Machine learning and prediction in medicine - beyond the peak of inflated expectations

    • Lost in thought: the limits of the human mind and the future of medicine

    • AI Applications in Healthcare - Introduction

    • Neural Networks and Introduction to Deep Learning

    • What is a Neural Network

    • Functions and Types of Neural Networks

    • CNNs and Computer Vision

    • Machine Learning for Medical Image Analysis

    • Use case: Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy

    • Face Recognition Technology

    • How does facial recognition work

    • Use case: Face Recognition for Disease Diagnosis

    • Natural Language Processing

    • How NLP Works

    • Chatbots in Healthcare

    • Virtual Assistants: Alexa

    • AI in Robotics

    • Use case: Mental Health Chatbot

    • Intelligent Robotics

    • Introduction to robotics

    • Use case: Robotic Surgery

    • Introduction to process mapping

    • Process map symbols

    • Additional Resources

    • How Computer Vision Works

    • How Machine Learning is fighting cancer

    • Development and validation of a deep learning algorithm for detection of diabetic retinopathy in retinal fundus photographs

    • How to Build a Chatbot

    • Technology and mental health: the role of artificial intelligence

    • Robotic surgery’s third wave