1st August 2016

A Big Welcome

This week @ASPHFT we welcomed brand new doctors to their Induction Week. 

Our Director of Medical Education neonatologist Dr Peter Martin led the introductions supported by the Foundation Programme Directors Vincent O'Neill and Tayo Johnson.

It may seem unnecessarily pessimistic, but early on in the piece I talk to the new doctors on how we can help tackle Bullying and Undermining. It's a bald fact of life that across the NHS as a whole 28% of staff experience undermining from other staff. ASPHFT is no exception as you can see from the 2015 NHS Staff Survey results: 

So if it does seem a bit of a downer I make no apology for spelling out that I'm here to help.

Departmental Induction

Next week sees the turn-around of the vast majority of our junior colleagues. Apart from the Surgical and T&O HSTs who changeover in October, Wednesday will see the arrival of the 2016/17 intake.

Wednesday will be for them spent on Trust Induction which means we should all take this opportunity to be prepared to give our inpatients every support. 

I'm looking forward to meeting our new tranche of Core trainees on Thursday when our first action will be a group crash course on how to steer ISCP, the portfolio whose evidence forms the basis of their revalidation.

T&O ARCPs at Stewart House

This week I made my first visit to Stewart House, the new Russell Square home for @HEE_KSS.

Right alongside the brutalism of Senate House (see below), Stewart House has a good set-up for the ARCP process with access to functioning Wifi and big screens so everyone can see what evidence has been uploaded

The afternoon saw the STC meeting where we had feedback from trainees on their experiences in the different Trusts in the region. Lots to digest and discuss, for  @ASPHFT at any rate.

HEE KSS has three TPDs in T&O, to cover this enormous territory. Phil Housden from William Harvey (Kent), Sam Hook from Worthing (Sussex) and Matt Solan from Guildford (Surrey) 

Forthcoming Attractions

(Some dates for the diary)

Careers Fairs coming up: first @theBMA's offering 

Next up is the RSM @RoySocMed Careers Fair in November:

https://www.rsm.ac.uk/CAREERSFAIR16

And Finally...

Happy Birthday Mr Michael

25th July 2016

In Praise of Educational Supervisors

It's that time of year again. The Foundation Programme's winding down, the final core training sign-offs are under way and the registrar ARCPs are looming.

This means Assigned Educational Supervisors are suddenly in high demand. In Surgical specialities, these are full-time consultants with a full-time commitment to patient care in theatres, in clinics and on call. It's also the time of year when holidays feel well deserved so hopefully no-one's left it to the last minute to get their final meetings done.

Most of us have shoehorned training into our working day because we enjoy it. It's a huge buzz to see a junior colleague grab opportunities to progress and along the way teach you stuff you didn't know before. Some specialities don't get any extra time to train, others have a nominal hour a week which is timetabled (to look compliant) in "lunchtimes" (yeah, I know, heard of those)

Well things are changing. From July 2016 the GMC @gmcuk require AESs to show evidence of educational activity as part of their annual appraisal. This is not only evidence of delivering teaching (with feedback and reflection) but also supporting professional development in teaching ie update courses in topics such as 'Supporting the Trainee in Difficulty'. 

This means a great deal of additional work (0.25 PAs per trainee looking even more measley now doesn't it) for our AESs and it may not be for everyone anymore. I have asked all my AESs in Surgery to review what's required of them now, and let me know if they want to stand down.

So as you wave goodbye to your placement spare a thought for our committed trainers trying hard to deliver education on top of everything else they do. Unsung heroes they are.

Last weeks of the Job

As July becomes August, it's all too easy to lose track of the current post you're in whilst planning for the next. Try and tidy up: remember what it was you wanted to know when you started and prepare such a handover for your colleague coming after you.

Induction always comes under criticism and thinking about it, it's probably that great absence of Time that's at the bottom of it. Time to get to grips with so much newness, time to absorb new rotas and weekly service plans, time to settle in - it's a luxury we don't have.

Nevertheless Induction is undergoing a revamp but it would be tremendously helpful if you put some thought into, for example, a crib sheet of contact numbers or work-ups for your firm's commonest procedures.

Surgeon of the Week

Haven't done this for a while but was so excited to see Neville Menezes in the building that I had to snap him up.

Neville flits between us and the Royal Surrey as a hepato-biliary surgeon and is seen here with fellow Upper GI/Bariatric surgeon Shashi Irukulla

Forthcoming Attractions 

Those who haven't an Educational Supervision qualification need to shake those tailfeathers & get on the RCP Educators course:

https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/education-practice/course/rcp-educator-accreditation

If you don't have a recognised qualification you can't supervise a trainee. This might not sound very exciting but it means you can't be on call with a trainee either. If part of a department has not engaged with the educational process that makes life extraordinarily difficult for service managers planning rosters & the week's schedules.

"Supporting the Underperforming Trainee" another thorny topic that benefits from specific training:

https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/education-practice/course/supporting-underperforming-trainee

11th July 2016

Surgical LFG

This week saw the Summer Surgical Local Faculty Group meeting. For the first time we were joined by Service Managers from T&O, Urology & Surgery as well as junior doctor representatives, educational supervisors and PGEC staff, for the open part of the meeting.

Angela Langwith-Green (in the middle here) our Medical Education Manager has been working tremendously hard to collate responses to the recent LETB visit and help us address issues raised in the GMC NTS Survey. Many of these issues are outwith the control of doctors and are management issues so it was great to put the problems directly to the people who can solve them.

For example, it was apparent our Service Managers felt the work was covered with few rota gaps as their mark of success was covering the on calls - they had not necessarily appreciated the impact of having daytime shifts uncovered leaving those who were there to do two or three people's work. I have asked them to return to us all rota gaps as this information doesn't seem to be going anywhere and I feel we need a baseline before the Guardian of Safe Wirking starts.

Angela is also heading up a piece of work to restructure Induction across the Trust. Departmental Induction year on year comes under fire in the GMC Survey and the LFG was useful to highlight wide variations in practice across the specialities. Sachin Agrawal and I are dragging everyone with us following the South Thames Foundation School exhaustive model for an Induction programme and whilst all the ground is covered in the Surgical Hanbook available on trustnet, if we don't verbalise it trainees don't feel it's been delivered.

That's all for now...

Short post this week, and out later than usual (apologies) as I am currently on annual leave. This means there'll be no post next week as though I'll be back I'll only have holiday snaps to report back on! Lovely for me, possibly quite dull for you... 😎