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Authors:

• Dr Hannah Headon, Medical Education Fellow, King’s College NHS Foundation Trust, Anaesthetics South East London
• Dr Christopher James, ST6 Anaesthetics, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
• Dr Kate Millar, ST4 Anaesthetics, Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
• Dr Joseph Lipton, Consultant Anaesthetist   Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

On 10 June 2022, the sun was shining and I was on my way to present at the RCoA’s College Tutors’ Meeting in Cardiff, feeling increasingly nervous and eager to share our hard work. 

However, my nerves were misplaced: the meeting was extremely friendly and our project, ‘The birth of the generic professional capabilities learning hub’, was well received – to the extent that it came second in the competition for the Singhota Family prize, awarded in memory of Dr Jasjot Singhota.

Authors:

• Dr Ros Bacon, Chair, RCoA Equivalence Committee
• Dr Ashwini Keshkamat, Deputy Chair, RCoA Equivalence Committee
• Dr Derek McLaughlin, Deputy Chair, RCoA Equivalence Committee
• Mr Russell Ampofo, RCoA Director of Education, Training and Examinations
• Ms Claudia Moran, RCoA Head of Training

Email our Equivalence team

The College is responsible for ensuring that anaesthetists meet the standards for Specialist Registration with the General Medical Council (GMC) and that UK and international medical professionals who seek independent practice in the UK have the necessary knowledge, skills and experience (KSE).

The increasing number of Certificate of Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR) applications and the GMC’s implementation of new regulatory pathways have presented challenges for the Equivalence Committee. The Equivalence Committee is committed, on behalf of the College and members, to maintaining standards. This article explores the proactive steps being taken by the College to support the Equivalence Committee and enhance the process of assessing CESR applications.

Meet our new research fellows and find more about them, their work and their interests outside anaesthesia.

3-D printers were once the remit of science fiction but are now relatively cheap, available and simple to use. Dr Gohil and Dr Eleanor Whittingham from Warwick Hospital tell us how they used a 3-D printer to solve a safety issue.

Some are very familiar – a growing, aging population with increasing levels of chronic health problems and significant inequalities in care provision. Others are a factor of the Indian system which Ravi describes as ‘chaotic’.

A key issue underpinning that chaos is the distribution of physicians, 80% of whom practice in urban areas while 70% of the population live rural lives.

Ravi and colleagues are using cutting-edge digital technology to improve healthcare provision in India by introducing ‘comprehensive connected care’. This hub-and-spoke model uses digital connectivity to exchange data and information between centrally located expert clinicians and those caring for patients. For example staff in 5G-enabled ambulances transporting very sick people over long distances receive advice from critical care physicians who have all the patient’s clinical data at their fingertips.

At the recent College Tutors’ Meeting in June, the submissions for the annual poster competition were judged. The three highest-scored abstracts were selected for oral presentation at the meeting. 

• Dr Amrit Dhadda, The Welsh School of Anaesthesia, was awarded first place.
• Dr April Lu, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Dr Charindri Wariyapola, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, came in joint second place.

In anaesthesia they have been present for the last 10 years but have become more prevalent in the last four years. Many factors have led to this increase, but one of the biggest is the rise in the number of IMGs as new registrants on the GMC register. These totalled 40% of all new registrants in the last year.¹ Other factors include training bottlenecks that have appeared as an unintended consequence of the changes from the 2010 curriculum.

This has led to increased competition for available posts, with significant numbers of doctors sitting in Locally Employed Doctor or Medical Training Initiative posts accumulating competencies that can count towards CESR. Understandably, trusts that can offer all the components of the curriculum in-house have recognised the potential to have a consistently high-quality, in-house workforce, with an ability to fill their own rotas when gaps appear. This is aided by the Lifelong Learning Platform being freely available to all members of the College, enabling training gaps to be easily identified and targeted with in-house training programmes.

Find out who has newly joined the College.