As we enter into another Oriel recruitment cycle, we thought it would be a great idea to release our 5 top tips to help you gain the understanding and confidence required to perform to the best of your ability and secure the Foundation Year Training placement of your dreams!

Our new Blog entry here at www.pharmascholar.co.uk offers a flavour of our knowledge and expertise in this area. More detailed information is available on our pharmaOriel webpage and you can book an appointment today with Dr Davies by completing our ‘Contact Us’ form on the website.

Tip 1: Always Consider Patient Safety

All healthcare professionals must place the well-being and safety of their patients at the centre of everything that they do. Patients must receive high quality care at all times. This aspect of healthcare provision is tested during the situational judgement test (SJT) during the Oriel recruitment process. There are two formats to consider. One involves a situation with 5 possible responses that must be arranged from the most appropriate (i.e. the one that offers best patient care) to the least appropriate. The other scenario asks you to think about a situation with 8 possible responses, where you must select the best 3. Overall, you may be asked to consider how you would handle:

Problem solving
Interacting with a difficult patient
Working in a team

As long as you keep patient safety at the heart of all of your decisions then you will score well on this part of the selection process.

Tip 2: Apply the Professional Attributes Framework (PAF)

The PAF is used as a model to outline key attributes that a Pharmacist should display when working to support patients. At this present moment in time, 4 aspects of the PAF are assessed and these are:

Person-centred care
Multi-professional working and leadership
Professional integrity and ethics
Problem solving, clinical analysis and decision making

More detail on the PAF is offered during pharmaOriel sessions with Dr Davies. Here, discussion on important elements within each of the 4 aspects outlined above are discussed such that you are Oriel ready!

Tip 3: Undertake Work Experience in Pharmacy

It is really important to gain as much work experience as possible in the various fields of Pharmacy. This is so as you will be exposed to the way in which Pharmacy-based systems and processes operate on a daily basis. By following pre-defined standard operating procedures put in place by various organisations, you will instinctively know what to do in any given situation. This will prove invaluable for the Oriel application process, in particular the SJT! You should consider gaining experience in Community Pharmacy, Hospital Pharmacy and Industrial Pharmacy if possible. By drawing on your university teaching and applying your real-world experience, your confidence and comprehension of various situations will be enhanced.

Tip 4: Approach the Oriel Process as a Pharmacy Trainee

All of the Oriel SJT questions will ask you to consider what you would do as a trainee and not as a fully qualified Pharmacist. It would be totally unfair for the questions to ask you about how you would handle a situation as a Pharmacist. You must show that you have the potential to work as a fully qualified healthcare professional and this is where the PAF comes in. If you are aware of the PAF and can apply the key indicators for the benefit of patient care then you can demonstrate that you have what it takes to be a Pharmacist. You must show that you understand the limitations of your current position. With this in mind, typical answers for your SJT may be refer on or ask for support from a senior.

Tip 5: Practice

The more you practice and prepare for the Oriel process then the more your confidence will grow; simple! You need to consider your baseline characteristics as a Trainee Pharmacist and show the assessment panel that you can make appropriate decisions. Should you book with Dr Davies then the approaches a healthcare professional would take to a given circumstance can easily be discussed. By practising and becoming more familiar with the assessment style then your anxiety will reduce and your confidence will grow. At the assessment stage, you will already know a lot about Pharmacy and that practice (i.e. during sessions with Dr Davies) will give you a boost to pass with flying colours!

Book your pharmaOriel appointment today with Dr Davies via ‘Contact Us’.

Good luck with your Oriel Journey!! Dr MJ Davies.