Our hope is that doctors who are settled in jobs; newly qualified; looking for fresh challenges; working at full throttle; planning retirement; or training flexibly; as well as international medical graduates, retainers, returners, and absconders will find something of interest in Career Focus.

We strive to cover everything objectively, from foundation programmes to the best theatre play lists to how to pass PLAB or starting in private practice.

Want to get involved?

Great. We prefer to commission all articles published in Career Focus so if you have an idea, please pitch it to us by emailing edavies@bmj.com

How to pitch an idea

Please include the following in your email:

• A two line summary of your idea
• Which type of article you want to write (see below for article types)
• How you are going to do it
• What qualifies you to write this
• How you can be contacted

What happens when we get your email?

If you’ve written for Career Focus before, or we like your examples of published work, and we like your idea, we’ll probably commission you to write it. This means that we’ll explain how we’d like it written, give you a deadline and offer you a fee on publication. If we think the idea has potential, but aren’t convinced the finished article will live up to its promise, we may ask you to send it in “on spec”. This does not commit us to publishing it. Either way, please do not go over the word limit and never miss a deadline.

You’ve written what we’ve asked for, what next?

• Write 2 lines introducing your article under the heading. This should include your name, in italics. For example: Rachel Bright-Thomas describes recent developments in breast surgery practice and training or You don't have to be a qualified dentist to do a senior house officer job in maxillofacial surgery. Ross Anderson and Martin Telfer explain how it can be a valuable experience for wannabe head and neck surgeons.
• Use Times New Roman size 12 font for the main text. Your title only should be in size 16. Left align the text, but don’t do anything else with it. No fancy fonts, no justification of text, no underlining, no italics other than your name in the two lines at the beginning.
• Please note that common nouns like doctor, general practitioner, senior house officer, professor and international medical graduate do not start with capital letters. However, abbreviations like SHO and GP do need to be in capitals.
• We hate exclamation marks. Please avoid them. If you find yourself using them to convey humour or add emphasis, please re-read your sentence and consider rephrasing it.
• If you exceed the word count, we’ll send the article back to you and ask you to resubmit to the agreed wordage. This is a bore and wastes everyone’s time.
• If you have photos to go with your article, please email them as separate Jpegs. Please do not embed pictures or photos in your article.
• Please note that a professional illustrator will redraw any diagrams.
• Alert readers to relevant websites or contacts by including a further information box at the end of your article.
• At the end of the article, type in your name (without title) in bold. On the next line, write your position and location. One author should also include an email address. For example:
• Sharon Hope
  SHO Surgery, Guy’s Hospital, London
  Sharon@hope.com
• Email your article as a word attachment to edavies@bmj.com

What happens next?

We aim to give you a prompt decision about material sent in on spec.

Once we receive commissioned work, it will be edited and returned to you, often with queries which we ask you to address promptly.

You also need to complete a competing interest and exclusive licence form and send them back to us before we can publish your article.

Your article will then be prepared for publication.

Different sorts of articles

Career Focus articles should inspire, inform and involve our readers.

Features

Feature articles vary in length between 800 and 1500 words. We’re open to suggestions on any topic pertinent to medical careers, doctors’ working lives or professional and personal development. Features need to be written objectively and include different perspectives and views. Boxes, scenarios and examples are useful but please ensure you have written consent to write about patients.

If you want to write about a speciality, include interviews with at least four doctors of varying grades in the specialty and cover:

• Training issues with a flowchart of the training route
• Number of current and projected national training numbers (by deanery if possible) and consultant numbers
• A day in the life of
• Advantages and disadvantages (for example competition for posts, length of training, out of hours work, pay)
• Qualities needed
• Future changes (if known)
• Further information

Fifteen minutes with…

Fifteen minute interviews are usually, but not always, with doctors. Subjects need to be either inspirational or extra-ordinary, preferably both. Run the person you want to interview by us first and we will work out between us the questions we want you to ask. Whatever happens in the actual interview, pieces should be written in the style of question then answer, question then answer and so on. Keep questions to short, snappy one liners in your write up. You are responsible for asking your subject for a photograph and emailing this as a jpeg along with your piece.

Fifteen minutes with…is always 850 words, including a 20 word bio box (subject’s name, position, potted biography).

Tips on…

Tips on…are either 330 or 450 word career related bulleted hints, for example ‘tips on… giving a presentation’ or ‘impressing your consultant on the golf course’. We are currently inundated with over a hundred Tips on…submissions and use only two a week. We’re not accepting any unsolicited ones at the moment, as we want to keep tips topical. Occasionally we commission Tips on…to accompany another article.

Diplomatosis

Diplomatosis is a practical guide to diplomas. So, if you have taken a diploma recently—whether you were inspired or utterly underwhelmed—we'd love to hear from you. Just answer the questions according to the template below and email it to us. If we publish your entry, we'll pay you £75. We will use as many submissions as we can, building up a useful database of different diplomas and your individual experiences.

• Diploma: Full title and acronym (for example, diploma of child health, DCH)
• Who's it for? (maximum two sentences)
• When did you do it? (year and stage of career)
• Why did you do it?
• How much effort did it entail? (preparing, revision, courses)
• Is there an exam? (and if so, what's the fee?) (describe basic format and pass rate)
• Did you go on a course? (and if so, what's the fee?) (name of course, format, and briefly say what was good about it and what could be better)
• Top tip: (the key information you wish you'd known before you started)
• Contact for further information: (institution, address, website URL, telephone number)
• Was it worth it? (Describe the pros and cons and how it's changed your practice or helped your career in no more than 100 words)
• Your name, job title and address

TWISI (The way I see it)

This is a 1000 word first person piece on any subject pertinent to medical careers, doctors’ working lives or professional and personal development.

Reviews

Our review section includes book, art, film, theatre and reviews as well as what’s on the web?

Book, art, film, theatre reviews
As always, run suggestions by us first. It must be on a topic relevant to Career Focus. Readers don’t want a regurgitation of what’s in it. They can get that from the cover blurb or programme. Instead, be critical, educate or enthuse. For book reviews please include the title, author, publisher, price and ISBN. Please rate whatever you are reviewing out of five, where five is outstanding and one abysmal. Reviews are 450 words.

What’s on the web?
These are reviews of what is available on the internet on a subject relevant to Career Focus readers (doctors’ careers, working lives or professional and personal development). Select several sites and compare and contrast them, noting how easy they are to navigate, comment on content, usefulness and anything that grabs you or repels. What’s on the web is 450 words.

Rapid Responses
We welcome your rapid reponses, whether in direct response to an article in Career Focus or as a way of sharing your own ideas and experiences. We are especially interested in upbeat ideas from which other doctors can benefit. As long as it isn’t libellous or offensive, we’ll post it. We print a selection on our letters page, but are no longer accepting snail mail “letters to the editor”.

10 tips for writers

• Write the article, exactly as we’ve agreed, sticking to the word count and within the deadline.
• Write in the active. For example, “you can gain unique experience” instead of “unique experience is gained”.
• Write as you speak.
• Keep it simple and informal.
• Try to keep paragraphs short, breaking up text with subheadings before every other paragraph.
• Don’t mention patients without their explicit consent. Use the consent form. Using fictitious examples to illustrate a point works well.
• Spell out abbreviations the first time you use them.
• Be specific about what country/area you are talking about. For example, Department of Health initiatives cover England only, GMC is UK-wide. Also do this with any statistics. Be clear what area/country they cover.
• Use references where appropriate.
• Please spell check your work before submitting it.

If you have queries please email edavies@bmj.com