IMT Portfolio Points Explained: A Guide to Building Your IMT Application (6 mins read)
Applying for Internal Medicine Training (IMT) can feel overwhelming, particularly when you're trying to understand what experience you need before submitting your application.
Your academic achievements, presentations, publications, teaching experience and quality improvement (QI) work can all contribute to your application. This guide takes you through the different areas and will help with identifying gaps in your portfolio with which you can make a plan to build relevant experience before applications open.
How Does IMT Portfolio Scoring Work?
A significant part of the IMT application involves self-scoring against the published criteria.
Rather than having every piece of evidence assessed during the initial application, applicants enter their scores themselves and provide written justification for the scores they have selected.
It is important to approach self-scoring carefully. Applicants should only claim points that they genuinely meet and should ensure that they understand the criteria before submitting their application. There will be free text areas for you to justify, with about 50 to 100 words per criteria, as to why you've chosen that score for yourself. Although they don't currently verify your evidence, that's not to say that that won't change in the future. Deliberately claiming points that you do not meet can raise serious probity concerns.
You will also be asked to complete a white space question on your commitment to specialty. Although this does not contribute to your shortlisting score, your response is shared with interviewers and may form the basis of interview questions (it was also previously used as an emergency plan to score candidates when interviews were unable to be carried out during covid-19 pandemic). Take time to provide a thoughtful answer that reflects your genuine interest in the specialty.
What Areas Contribute to the IMT Portfolio?
Portfolio area | Examples of experience |
Postgraduate qualifications | Postgraduate academic qualifications |
Presentations and posters | Presenting research, QI or other academic work |
Publications | Original research and other eligible publications |
Teaching experience | Organising and delivering teaching sessions |
Training in teaching | Teaching qualifications and relevant courses |
Quality improvement | Involvement in QI projects |
The criteria represented a maximum possible score of 30 across these areas. However, recruitment criteria can change, so applicants should refer to the latest IMT application scoring criteria for the most up-to-date scoring breakdown before applying.
Let's look at each area in more detail.
1. Postgraduate Qualifications
One of the first areas where applicants can score points is through postgraduate qualifications. The IMT application criteria specify that these must be postgraduate-entry qualifications rather than undergraduate degrees so intercalated degrees don’t count. A PhD can attract a maximum of four points, with fewer points available for lower-level postgraduate qualifications. Undergraduate qualifications such as BAs and BScs do not attract points in this section.
2. Presentations and Posters
A maximum of 8 points are available for presentations and posters, with the number of points varying according to the level of the event and the type of presentation.
How can you build presentation experience?
Research, audit and quality improvement projects can all potentially lead to opportunities to present your work.
For example, you might:
Present a QI project at a departmental meeting.
Submit an abstract to an appropriate conference.
Present research findings at an academic meeting.
Look for opportunities to present posters.
Keep certificates or other evidence of your presentations.
One useful approach is to look at how different portfolio activities can connect. For example, completing a QI project may provide an opportunity to present the results at a conference, allowing one piece of work to contribute to several aspects of your professional development.
3. Publications
You get a maximum of 6 points for being the first author of an original research publication. These all have to be publications that have a PubMed ID, which means they're published in a journal that's indexed by PubMed. If you have any publications that are Non-PMID that gets you one point only.
What types of publications can you consider?
You can explore different types of academic publication opportunities, including:
Original research
Case reports
Letters to the editor
While first-author original research can be more difficult to achieve, case reports and letters may offer more accessible opportunities if you are looking to develop your publication record.
Rather than pursuing publications simply to collect points, look for legitimate academic opportunities that allow you to develop your research and critical appraisal skills while strengthening your professional portfolio.
4. Teaching Experience
Teaching is an important area to consider when building your IMT portfolio.
Please note Teaching experience is different from training in teaching, meaning that having teaching experience and having completed formal teaching training are two separate distinct areas.
If you had organised and delivered regular teaching over a three-month period you would get 5 points, while delivering teaching without taking responsibility for organising it gets you only 3 points.
Feedback and reflection- Its important to obtain feedback on your teaching and reflect on the teaching you have delivered.
This means that simply having "teaching experience" on your CV isn't necessarily the whole story. Think about whether you can demonstrate what you taught, who you taught, your role in organising the activity, what feedback you received and what you learned from the experience.
How can you gain teaching experience?
Depending on your role and local opportunities, you could consider:
Organising regular departmental teaching.
Delivering teaching to medical students.
Teaching colleagues or junior doctors.
Taking responsibility for a teaching programme during a rotation.
Developing teaching materials or sessions.
Collecting structured feedback.
Reflecting on your teaching and using feedback to improve future sessions.
5. Training in Teaching
It is useful to understand the distinction between Teaching experience and Training in teaching. Teaching experience demonstrates that you have actually planned and delivered teaching whereas Training in teaching demonstrates that you have undertaken structured learning to develop your skills as an educator.
They are not necessarily interchangeable. Rather than waiting until applications open, you can start developing your teaching skills and experience earlier.
Explore Medics.Academy’s CPD Accredited Training in Teaching (TNT) Programme
which is designed for doctors who want to develop their teaching skills and gain
structured experience in medical education
6. Quality Improvement
The QI project may be a new project or might involve the further development and sustainability of an existing change project. Clinical audits can be a type of QI project, if they use QI methodology.
You don't necessarily have to start a completely new project. You can look within your hospital or department for existing QI projects where you can take an active role. You can get full marks (4) for involvement in every stage of a two cycle QI project or fewer points for lesser degrees of involvement.
How Can an FY2 Build Their IMT Portfolio?
Don't wait until applications open to start thinking about your portfolio. A useful first step is to map your current experience against the different areas of the application.
Review the current IMT criteria early.
Identify which areas you already have evidence for.
Identify any gaps in your portfolio.
Look for appropriate opportunities to develop experience.
Keep evidence of your achievements as you go.
Make sure your application accurately reflects your experience.
Some portfolio activities are significantly more difficult to achieve than others. For example, a PhD or postgraduate teaching qualification may not be realistic for every FY2, whereas teaching, QI, presentations and some forms of publication may offer more accessible opportunities depending on your circumstances. It is therefore worth prioritising these more achievable areas when starting to build your portfolio.
It is also worth thinking beyond IMT, particularly if you plan to apply for Higher Specialty Training (HST) in the future. HST applications use a very similar scoring matrix, meaning that experience gained for your IMT application can often be carried forward or further developed. While IMT does not currently require all applicants to submit evidence for verification (although some applications may be spot-checked), HST applications do involve evidence verification. Make sure you retain clear records and supporting evidence of your achievements, so that you can use them again when applying for HST.
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