postgraduate medical education


postgraduate medical education

A generic term for formalised training and education of junior doctors after graduation from medical school in the UK.
Pre-Modernising Medical Careers (pre-2007)
First-year trainees were called preregistration house officers (PRHOs) and senior house officers (SHOs), and were essentially equivalent to what is now termed Foundation Years 1 and 2 (FY1, FY2). The education continued as either GP vocational training or Specialist Registrar (SpR) training.
Modernising Medical Careers (post-2007)
GP training requires three years of a 3-year “run-through” GP Specialty Training Program (GPSTP) with 18 months as a Specialty Registrar, during which time the trainee completes a mixture of jobs in hospital specialties, such as obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, geriatric medicine, A&E (accident and emergency) or psychiatry, and 18 months as a GP Specialty Registrar in General Practice before becoming GPs. Juniors who are specialising generally take a core training of 2–3 years (CT1, CT2, CT3), after which time they compete for a post in higher specialty training by obtaining a national training number (NTN) and continue as ST4, ST5, etc., and eventually become hospital consultants.