ePortfolio and exams

ePortfolio

The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ online ePortfolio will be the main method of monitoring and recording trainees’ progression throughout training. You should register immediately at the beginning of training, and enter your email address and GMC number. Trainees (and their Educational Supervisor) should quickly become familiar with the curriculum and competencies.

Completion of the Royal College of Psychiatry ePortfolio is mandatory for all specialty trainees, to record and store key documents for progression through training. Should trainees experience any problems with the ePortfolio the Royal College of Psychiatry can be directly contacted on email, support@training.rcpsych.ac.uk.

To access, visit the Royal College of Psychiatry e-Portfolio login webpage.

Working with ePortfolio

Trainees’ ePortfolio should be reviewed with their Educational Supervisor from time to time, beginning with the first planning meeting discussing the goals for the placement. A PDP should be updated regularly. This will make your Educational Supervisor (as well as the trainee) familiar with managing the ePortfolio.

The full range and number of WPBAs should be regularly uploaded. The Mini PAT is an informative tool, needing planning ahead in each placement, to be completed in time for Interim Reviews and ARCPs with a sufficient number of respondents.

Trainees should become familiar with the curriculum-mapping of ePortfolio entries, and this is particularly important during higher training to confirm coverage of the specialty for the CCT. Any one item (e.g. a CBD or reflection) should be mapped to a maximum of four curriculum areas, so that when the mapping is reviewed at ARCP it reflects realistic coverage of curriculum.

The ePortfolio is an opportunity to demonstrate excellence and it plays a large part in interviews for promotion to ST4. It should include reflections showing, thinking and learning around clinical and non-clinical events. Reflections should not give sufficient clinical detail to identify an individual case.

As part of using the ePortfolio as an aid to self-learning, it is helpful to record points from supervision and from teaching (mapped to the curriculum) although these are not mandatory for the KSS ARCP review. It should confirm annual completion of the GMC Training Survey.

Involvement in service improvement and leadership is part of the curriculum; in KSS this is most easily evidenced by a completed LEADER form. Although the LEADER form is not a mandatory document, it is a first place to check this area at an Interim Review.

The ePortfolio is key to the Interim and ARCP processes, through uploading the information required for ARCP/Interim Reviews and allowing panel members (such as the TPD and Head of School) access to your ePortfolio. For more information, please visit the ARCP webpage.

Exams

MRCPsych exams

The MRCPsych examinations are a key part of training progress, and an exit criterion for the move on to Higher Specialty training. Doctors in Core Psychiatry training should aim to sit each exam at an early opportunity, starting in the CT1 year. Although this seems daunting, it will avoid pressures later in Core training. CT1 doctors can sit the written paper A and B exams immediately, in either order.

The Clinical Assessment of Skills and Competencies (CASC) exam

The CASC exam can be taken after 24 months of training, and a pass in written papers A & B. The dates and results of exams are automatically entered in the ePortfolio by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Examination dates

The full exam timetable and application window is available on the Royal College of Psychiatrists website.