1) Specialty Trainee Education Week
Last year's gastro training week in Bridgend yielded
excellent feedback from the gastro STs, and there was a 95% attendence rate from
all trainees in Wales. The modular days were well received, and many thanks to
Dr Dave, Dr Yapp, Dr Dolwani, Dr Alcolado and Dr Hawthorne for organising the
teaching days on Motility disorders, Liver Disease, Lower GI endoscopy, Personal
Development and IBD respectively - we covered a broad and interesting syllabus
over the week.
This year we will be following a similar pattern. The
venue is provisionally booked at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, and the week is
already fixed as the week commencing July 2nd 2012 (put it in your diaries).
Whilst these sessions are based on the Gastroenterology Curriculum, we would be
willing and able to accommodate interested trainees from other specialities if
they contact me on the email address below. We hope to have a full schedule
released by the end of March.
2) ST6 Specialty Fellowships
Those trainees registered on to the 2010 gastro
curriculum (ie all trainees appointed as ST3 on or after Aug 2010)may already
be aware that this curriculum recommends that during their ST6 year that
they have the opportunity to do subspeciality fellowships in one or two of
Hepatology, Nutrition, IBD and ERCP/EUS training. The Specialty Advisory
Committee are working on this and we believe we will be in a position to deliver
excellent fellowships in most or all of these subjects, and an additional one on
Advanced Colonoscopy. These Fellowships will be available on a competitive basis
to trainees at ST6 level from August 2013 and are most likely to involve no
commitment to medicine on-call. This remains work in progress and I will update
you all as soon as I hear more. We are confident that we can offer a number of
these fellowships by the deadline next year.
3) ARCPs
Could I remind all trainees to ensure that they are
continuing to maintain their e-portfolios. We have a number of trainees
approaching their penultimate year assessments (PYAs) and it is especially vital
that these trainees focus on completing the 'curriculum' and WPBA section of
their e-portfolio. PYAs are particularly rigourous and if inadequate evidence is
presented there is a real risk of non-progression at this point. This year the
ARCPs have been fixed for June 22nd. I would invite any interested trainer to
attend this session, it gives an enormous amount of insight into the relevance
of the e-portfolio and how we run the process. I have done this myself for 2
years and it has had a radical impact on how I manage my trainees.
4) ST interviews
We will be interviewing for new STs soon in April - I
will be emailing all trainers with dates very soon looking for help with this
process. We need a minimum of 7 interviewers per day, so it is labour intensive
and we are very dependent on your support to make this work. Those who have done
it before have found it an interesting and sometimes quite fun day. Please
volunteer
Dr. Peter Neville