CAMP is a structure for the question that opens most senior medical interviews: talk us through your CV, or tell us about your training and what has prepared you for this post. Without a structure the answer becomes a chronology that the panel has already read. With CAMP it becomes a two minute argument for your suitability, organised the way person specifications are organised.
What the letters stand for
Clinical: the experience and competence you bring. The posts, the case mix, the procedures, the sickest patients, the subspecialty exposure, and what they taught you.
Academic: the research, the audit and quality improvement, the teaching, the exams, the presentations and publications.
Management: the leadership and service roles. The rota you ran, the project you led, the committee you sat on, the service you changed, the governance work.
Personal: who you are as a colleague. How you work, what sustains you, what you do outside medicine, and the honest line about what you will find hard.
How to use it
Decide the message first: why you are suitable for this post, in a sentence. Then pick one or two items under each heading that support the message, each with a specific and a result. Say the headings aloud as signposts, because panels find structured answers easier to score. Close by returning to the message and pointing forward to the post.
Keep it to two to three minutes. Cut anything the panel can read in the application. Cut adjectives. Use the first person and plain verbs: I led, I audited, I changed, I learned.
At consultant level
The emphasis shifts toward management and the academic contribution, and every item should link to the person specification for this post. "Clinically, eight years in the specialty with a subspecialty interest in X that this department needs. Academically, an audit programme that reduced Y with the numbers. In management, I ran the rota for three years and led the change to Z. Personally, I am the colleague who stays calm when it goes wrong, and I will find the first year's politics hardest." Then the close.
At training level
The emphasis is on the clinical experience that prepares you for the next level and the evidence of commitment to the specialty. The management heading is lighter: a rota, a society role, a project. The personal heading carries the honesty about what will be hard.
Where it does not fit
CAMP is for the career summary. It is not a structure for behavioural questions, which need STAR or STARR, or for scenarios, which need the clinical or ethical structure. Candidates who try to CAMP every answer sound mechanical.
Common mistakes
A chronology with the headings attached. Items with no result. The academic heading inflated beyond what you can defend under probing. No personal heading, which leaves the panel without a sense of who you are. Running past three minutes.
Practising
Write it in full, cut it to two minutes aloud, and record it. Then have someone ask the follow up to each item, because the panel will pick one and probe it.