Abbey Barraclough

The Situational Judgement Test

We have made it to Christmas! One third of the way through the year already, two fifths of our fifth year placements done and one of the biggies out of the way – the SJT. The Situational Judgement Test, or SJT because we medics love a good acronym, is basically the final years version of the UKCAT. It’s a fancy aptitude test that’s going to tell us if we are going to be good doctors or not. That’s the gist as I understood it anyway – there has obviously been a lot more research into it and that’s probably a massive over-simplification! You’re given a score out of 50 and that’s added to your academic score to go towards your junior doctor application. So it counts for almost half your final points – it’s pretty important! The questions are based on different ethical situations that you will encounter on the wards and how you think is the best way to respond. For example ‘you see a colleague shouting at another, do you a) do nothing b) talk to the colleague about their behaviour c) talk to your senior about the situation’ etc. There are two sections to the paper, the first you have five options and you have to rank most-least appropriate and in the second you choose the three best options from a longer list.

The actual test actually makes a lot more sense than the UKCAT, it’s only the same in that it’s meant to be one of those that you can’t revise for and is more about aptitude than knowledge. But I would argue that and say that revising for it is a good idea. There are practice papers online and it was definitely worth going over them, getting used to the style of questions and running through the timing. Going over the GMC guidelines is another good tip! After a while you begin to see patterns in what they are wanting from your answers, like talking to the person directly before escalating it to seniors was a common one. It is, or should be, common sense but I won’t lie some of them are a bit more tricky. I suppose it’s like anything, we just have to sit and wait now!

Next term we have our prescribing exam, should (fingers crossed) find out where we will end up as F1 doctors and start prepping for life after medical school. Along with helping to sort out things like the graduation ball, it will no doubt be a very busy but very exciting term! However for now, we have a few weeks off to put our feet up and make the most of our last Christmas without the threat of working. Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and we shall catch up again in the New Year!