Psychiatrist CV Examples & Writing Guide

In the UK, doctors apply with a CV, usually alongside an NHS Jobs or Trac application form. The full medical CV runs two to six pages, lists everything in reverse order, and includes training, registration, posts held, teaching, audit, publications and presentations. Nobody in medicine expects it to fit on one page.

• Use the full CV for NHS trusts, independent sector mental health hospitals, university departments, prison and secure services, consultant interviews and any pre-employment pack. Medical staffing needs every date, including month and year, because gaps have to be explained.
• Use a two-page CV for digital health and online therapy companies, pharmaceutical or medical affairs roles, medicolegal agencies and management jobs outside the NHS. Those readers are often not doctors and are skimming for fit.
• Keep one master CV and cut from it. Never keep two versions with different dates, because medical staffing will find the difference and it delays your start date.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status and no hobbies list on a UK medical CV. Some overseas CVs include them; UK ones do not.

A condensed two-page CV for a consultant general adult psychiatrist in community mental health who also runs video clinics and supervises nurse prescribers. The person, the services and the training programme are invented.

• Credentials, in one block: medical degree, Foundation Programme, core and higher psychiatry training with dates, MRCPsych, CCT date or Specialist Register entry, GMC licence to practise, and Section 12 and Approved Clinician status. If you trained abroad, add how you gained GMC registration.
• Practice fit. Population (adults, children and young people, older adults, forensic, prison, perinatal), setting (community team, inpatient ward, crisis and home treatment, liaison, early intervention in psychosis), and NHS or independent sector. Psychiatry hiring is highly setting-specific.
• Volume and scope. Patients a clinic, caseload, on-call rota, whether you supervise nurse prescribers or specialty doctors, and whether you take complex cases such as clozapine or ECT patients.
• Anything that shortens time to start: current Section 12 and Approved Clinician approval, full GMC registration with a licence to practise, a clear fitness to practise history, and your availability date.
• Quality and service contribution: readmission, follow-up within 72 hours of discharge, waiting time to first appointment, DNA rate, protocol or committee work. This is what separates two otherwise identical CVs.

“Registration, approvals and start date decide whether I open the CV at all. After that, tell me the population and the volume you are used to. A psychiatrist who has managed clozapine and long-acting injectables for people with severe mental illness is a different hire from someone doing 20-minute medication reviews for mild anxiety, and both CVs can look identical if the writing is vague.”

This is the part of a psychiatrist CV that gets edited wrong most often. Write it plainly, in one block, and keep it accurate to the letter.

• Specialist Register: "GMC Specialist Register (General Psychiatry), [year]", with the route (CCT, or the portfolio pathway, formerly CESR) and any endorsement such as liaison or addiction psychiatry. If you are still in higher training, write "CCT expected" and the date. Do not claim Specialist Register entry until it is confirmed.
• Psychiatry specialties with their own CCT include child and adolescent, forensic, old age, medical psychotherapy and psychiatry of learning disability, as well as general psychiatry. Name the training programme and dates alongside them.
• GMC registration: full registration, licence to practise, any conditions or undertakings, and your last revalidation date. Membership is MRCPsych by exam; FRCPsych is awarded by election, so do not present it as a qualification you passed.
• Mental Health Act approvals: Section 12(2) approval and Approved Clinician status in England and Wales, each with the year it was granted or renewed, since approvals are time-limited and need refresher training. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own mental health law, so describe the equivalent approval you hold there.
• Basic and any immediate life support, plus indemnity for private work if you are asked for it. Do not put fitness to practise or claims history on the CV; that goes on the pre-employment or practising privileges forms.
• International medical graduates: add your route to GMC registration (PLAB or an accepted postgraduate qualification), English language results, visa status if relevant to the employer, and any UK clinical attachments or research with real dates.

A short personal statement is optional on a full medical CV and expected on a two-page CV. Four lines: registration and grade, years, population and setting, volume, one measurable contribution.

• Child and adolescent: age range, school and paediatric collaboration, family work, ADHD and autism assessment experience, report writing for education, health and care plans or family courts, and waiting time to first appointment.
• Addiction psychiatry: opioid substitution treatment volume (methadone and buprenorphine), alcohol detoxification, work with community drug and alcohol services, harm reduction, and liaison with courts or probation if relevant.
• Forensic psychiatry: report types and volumes (fitness to plead, psychiatric defences, civil and tribunal reports), report turnaround, court and tribunal evidence, and work in secure hospitals or prisons. Keep case names off the page.
• Old age psychiatry: dementia and behavioural symptom management, memory clinic and care home work, delirium, deprescribing, and coordination with GPs.
• Liaison psychiatry: referrals a year, services covered, mental capacity assessments, transplant or oncology psychiatry, and any protocol you wrote for the hospital.
• Crisis, inpatient and prison: patients a shift, Mental Health Act assessments, reducing seclusion and restraint, and safety planning volume.
• Remote psychiatry and digital health: which UK nations you work in and the approvals you hold there, appointments a day, completed-appointment rate, remote prescribing practice, and how crisis escalation works without an in-person site.

Higher trainees are hired on training quality, breadth of posts and CCT date. You can be interviewed for consultant posts in the last six months before CCT, so a usable CV should exist by ST5.

1. 1Put your CCT date and MRCPsych in the header. Availability is the first thing medical staffing needs.
2. 2Apply for Section 12 and Approved Clinician approval in good time and say on the CV where you are, with the month. Approved Clinician status decides whether you can act as responsible clinician from day one, and therefore whether you are competitive.
3. 3List training posts with volume and setting: inpatient months, liaison, crisis, addictions, child, old age, and the length of your outpatient clinic with an approximate caseload.
4. 4Add chief registrar duties, committee work, quality improvement projects, teaching and any protocol you helped write. These are the parts of a trainee CV that read like a consultant.
5. 5Keep publications, posters and presentations in their own sections with full citations, in reverse order. Do not scatter them through the experience section.
6. 6Say what you want: population, setting, region, and whether you will join the on-call rota or cover remote clinics. Medical staffing is matching you to a specific post.

• Order for a psychiatry CV: name and contact, GMC registration and Mental Health Act approvals, education and training, posts held, teaching, management and committee work, audit and quality improvement, publications and presentations, professional memberships, references on request.
• Length: two to six pages is normal. Academic psychiatrists with long publication lists run longer, and nobody minds. Cut to two pages only for non-clinical employers.
• Plain layout, consistent month and year formatting, no photo, no tables that break in an applicant tracking system. NHS Jobs, Trac and independent providers all parse uploads.
• Mirror the advert: consultant psychiatrist, general adult psychiatrist, specialty doctor, locum consultant, clinical director, child and adolescent psychiatrist. These are distinct searches.
• Words that recur in UK psychiatry adverts: MRCPsych, Section 12, Approved Clinician, Specialist Register, community mental health team, severe mental illness, risk assessment, multidisciplinary, dual diagnosis, RiO or SystmOne, supervision, on-call.
• Send PDF named lastname-firstname-CV-psychiatry.pdf, and keep a plain-text version for portals that will not parse a PDF cleanly.

One more practical point. Keep a one-page summary of your GMC number, Section 12 and Approved Clinician approval dates, training dates and indemnity details in a separate file. You will be asked for exactly that during pre-employment checks, several times, by different people.