Getting Started with Sci59 – an online career tool for medical students and FY doctors

Looking for career guidance? Wondering which specialties might suit you?

What is Sci59 Online?
Sci59 Online is an Open University resource to help medical students and junior doctors in training see how their skills, attitudes, preferences and aspirations map against specialties.

What does it do? 
Sci59 lists the career choices that provide a reasonable match to your personal profile and, importantly, those that have a very poor degree of match.

Based on skills and attributes that consultants believe are critical to success in their field, Sci59 takes you through over a hundred questions about your preferred work settings, decision making styles, comfort with uncertainty and so on. The process takes about 15 minutes but you can stop at any time and go back to finish the questions later. 

The resulting personal profile ranks 59 specialties (including General Practice) against your expressed preferences, but also shows on which of 12 dimensions there were the strongest matches between you and a specialty. 
Your results are stored, so you can refer to them again. You can also print off the results in various formats. Your user name allows you to answer the survey three more times, so that you can compare results as you progress through your training. 
 
What it doesn’t do
Sci59 aims to provide food for thought and prompt further research – it does not tell you what to do!

Use Sci59 results alongside information, advice and guidance from other sources,such as Royal College websites and the NHS Medical careers website . We would also strongly recommend that, in order to get the most out of using this tool, you seek help in interpreting the results with colleagues, educational and clinical supervisors or careers advisers.

How do I access Sci59 Online and find out more?

Access is available through username and password only.*Student members of the BMA can access Sci59 via the BMA website. Click on careers guidance tools –  or from the Open University  website.

( *student membership of the BMA is free for the 1st year.2nd year introductory rate -£33.00.Subsequent years – £39.00 a year)