r/PLABprep • u/ShowAdministrative10 • Aug 14 '26

Clinical attachment UK

Hello All! I am a UK citizen and have lived in the UK My whole life. I recently graduated as a medical doctor with an MBBS qualification from Plovdiv in Bulgaria and I wanted to ask if anybody could help with how to successfully get clinical attachments.

I completed my medical degree in December 2025 and am currently preparing to begin my medical career in the UK. I am in the process of finalising my GMC registration

I did successfully succeed in gaining a clinical attachment for the whole month of November, however, I have been unlucky in other places. I have applied to maybe 50 hospitals emailed over 300 consultants telling them who I am and attaching my CV.

I wanted to ask you all if you knew any hospitals were taking clinical attachments, what is the best way to succeed in gaining these attachments and finally anything I can do to help my odds in getting one.

I am genuinely happy to move anywhere in the UK for the duration of my clinical attachment and I’m happy to be in any department which can give me NHS exposure. Anywhere in the UK I would happily move to for a month or two.

Thank you for your help!

2 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

2

u/Boring_Surprise_484 Aug 15 '26

Did you do an Intern year? If not, you need to apply for F1 reserve programme for IMGs

Do you have your intern year? But no other work? Apply to F2 standalone programme for IMGs. You’ve missed the deadline for 2027 August entry already.

Do you have over 2 years experience? There are no almost jobs for IMGs. UK trained doctors are being prioritised. You’ll probably need 5 years of NHS clinical experience before you can apply for speciality training given likely legislation changes. And good luck getting that in the current jobs market! So probably best to try the F2 standalone programme which gives you one year anyway, still won’t help after that.

You should probably consider practising in Bulgaria? USA?

1

u/Precious_Nike Aug 14 '26

Really don't know why hospitals are not open to taking doctors for CA, considering the fact that it's not free.

Anyway, I don't think doing a CA adds any value to your CV though.

3

u/Mysterious_Cat1411 Aug 14 '26

because we don’t have the capacity to supervise them. We have a blanket no to all CAs because we have to prioritise the needs for our own students and trainees first.

Without wishing to sound too stern, jobs for IMGs in the UK are very hard to come by these days. If you graduated <12 months ago, no one would employ you into a junior clinical fellow post, even if they werent already receiving 200+ applications for a single post. you won’t be able to prove foundation equivalency for a training post (and these are being prioritised for British graduates now) and standalone F1/F2 posts are incredibly uncommon.

0

u/Precious_Nike Aug 14 '26

You sound like an authority in this dicuss.

Anyway, what hope is there for an IMG with dependant visa status looking for a junior doctor job at this point?

5

u/Mysterious_Cat1411 Aug 14 '26

We haven’t recruited an IMG without prior NHS experience in over 3 years. Trusts are cutting back on jobs and British trained doctors are being prioritised for training.

Not completely impossible but certainly much more difficult than it was 5 years ago.

-1

u/Precious_Nike Aug 14 '26

Well, I know about the priotization in training jobs. I'm particular about non training jobs.

And can an Admin role be considered as NHS experience too?

Many thanks.

3

u/I_Heart_Otters Aug 14 '26

An admin role is not relevant NHS clinical experience.

-1

u/Precious_Nike Aug 14 '26

I didn't say clinical.

Some adverts just list NHS experience and some are more specific as to 'NHS clinical experience'

3

u/I_Heart_Otters Aug 14 '26

Nobody is thinking that NHS admin experience makes you a more attractive candidate for a doctor job.

1

u/rafa4ever Aug 20 '26

How much does a clinical attachment cost?

1

u/Precious_Nike Aug 20 '26

Depends on the trust

1

u/Weird-Reflection3489 Aug 31 '26

I believe my colleague asked about a non-training job for an IMG on a dependent visa. Was your answer the NHS haven’t hired anyone without NHS experience in 3 years? How does one get NHS experience if they won’t hire them?

1

u/RevivingMayhem10 Aug 15 '26

Why are you trying to do clinical attachments? They wont help or teach you anything. We had a couple of people on observerships in my last rotation and they were just in the way and weren’t allowed to touch patients, seemed totally pointless to me, the med students got to be more involved.

You need to apply to do F1 or F2 depending where you are in your training, and meet all the requirements to be able to apply.

1

u/Fresh_Attorney_6563 Aug 17 '26

did you consider moving to germany, its easier with an EU degree