Find out the latest appointments approved, and with sadness we record the deaths of some of our fellows.
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We chat with our new President, Dr Claire Shannon to find out more about who she is and what she thinks about several hot topics.
My first President’s View features edited highlights from a podcast I recorded with fellow Council Member and Bulletin Editor Dr Ramai Santhirapala. We discussed several topics including questions submitted by our membership engagement panel.
You can listen to the full conversation on our Anaesthesia on Air podcast. I also recommend that you take a moment to watch or read the CEO update, in which Jono Brüün provides an update on recent decisions about Churchill House and finding a new home for the College.
Read the latest letters submitted by members in Spring's Bulletin.
I write this month’s President’s View in the week following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. On behalf of the College, I extend our condolences to the Royal Family. I hope that the expression of admiration and love felt for the Queen worldwide has been of some comfort to them. Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal has long been a dedicated and supportive patron of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, and our thoughts are with her at this time of personal sadness, with which many of us can empathise.
The Nuffield Department of Anaesthesia in Oxford is the largest clinical department in our trust. We are based across five different sites, with more than 200 anaesthetists. Our department has a strong history of engaging in national projects, including the National Audit Projects (NAPs).
Dr Daniele Bryden, Dean, Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine talks about the concerns, challenges, and opportunities offered in developing a UK College of Intensive Care Medicine.
If there is one thing we have learnt recently, it is to make sure we engage with you, our members. We need your valuable experience and views to shape the future of the College. You may remember that back in February we took a single proposal regarding governance of the College to an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), asking members to back a package of measures to change the governance of the College and bring us in line with the laws which govern us in our legal status as a charity. This proposal, while receiving the majority of votes, did not get the support of the two-thirds of attendees needed to pass it.
While it's a hugely rewarding and exciting time for any doctor, Dr Tom Walters explores the many challenges of training as a novice anaesthetisit.
A novice anaesthetist will face a range of new environments, technical skills, knowledge, people and equipment. It is easy to feel that ‘the glass is starting to overflow’. However, an understanding of cognitive load theory can be used to optimise complex learning tasks.
It’s beneficial for all anaesthetists to manage cognitive load at work, but also for anaesthetists to implement these principles when teaching in theatre.
Cognitive load theory has been developed from the Modal model of memory described by Atkinson and Shiffrin. This details how information is received, encoded, stored and retrieved during learning (see An illustration of the Modal model of memory by Dr Thomas Walters). Incoming information is consciously held and processed within working memory, before being encoded into long-term memory. Working memory has a limited capacity, and information within it is transient and forgettable. Once encoded into long-term memory, information is organised in schema, with a seemingly unlimited capacity. Working memory can hold five to nine pieces of information at a time. However, if required to process this information, capacity is significantly reduced.
As this issue’s theme is training, the team picked out six resources for anaesthetists in training, supervisors, or anyone involved in training.
As this issue’s theme is training, we’ve picked out six for anaesthetists in training, supervisors, or anyone involved in training. We hope you find them interesting and helpful.
If you’d like us to feature resources from your subspecialty here, or have any other suggestions or feedback, please email us at education-resources@rcoa.ac.uk.
Dr Jon Chambers picks up the reins as Editor of the Bulletin and welcomes you to the year's first issue.
Dr Jon Chambers picks up the reins as Editor of the Bulletin and welcomes you to the year's first issue.
As I pick up the reins as Editor of the Bulletin, I do so with an appropriate degree of trepidation. The Bulletin has been a constant throughout my anaesthetic career, and it remains a window into our specialty that combines a mix of news, developments within the specialty, personal stories and guidance. In my short time in the role, I’ve already been humbled by the quality of contributions from the anaesthetic community willing to share their stories and their work with colleagues.
The start of a new year is often a time to look to the future and the new challenges ahead. In the midst of this newness I have always believed that we should also take the time to look back, and to learn from and reflect on the lessons of our past. In the run up to LGBT+ History Month (February) Professor Andrew Hartle does just that, and he writes openly and honestly on the challenges he has faced as an out gay anaesthetist throughout his career in the NHS and the military. His reflections take us through his journey of exclusion and stigmatisation, and then ultimately of acceptance, recognition and celebration. It is an incredible journey and ends with him rightly encouraging us all to feel prouder in 2025.