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Anaesthetic room walls are often covered with various posters and warnings reminding staff about recent incidents or safety hazards. Signs prompt us where to find dantrolene or intralipid, or how to confirm tube placement. 

When the RCoA changed its branding in 2016, professional designers were called in and consulted on the changes. When creating clinical informatics however, it is often left to clinicians; but a complex series of decisions that combine aesthetics, psychology, and ergonomics are required to make presentation effective.

In this, the first of a series of articles, we will explore some of the issues relevant to presenting information, beginning with iconography.

Aileen Kirkpatrick Adams was born in 1923 in Sheffield, where she qualified in medicine in 1945. She trained in anaesthesia at the Royal Free and Edgeware hospitals in London and at Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital under Dr Tom Wilton, and worked in Oxford under Sir Robert Macintosh. She also enjoyed a sojourn at the Massachusetts General Hospital under Henry Beecher. Finally, she was appointed as a consultant anaesthetist in Cambridge, England.

Welcome to a new feature in this Bulletin issue in which we share and showcase education and training content to keep you up-to-date on good practice and ways of working.

In this recurring series, we’ll post event video clips, podcasts, and links to downloadable resources, some of them available exclusively to members, via the Bulletin. We’d love to know how you find this. Tell us what content you want to see here and what professional-development areas you’d benefit from.

In this issue we’re focusing on patient safety, looking at communication and simulation and featuring videos, audio, and downloadable resources drawn from across our website and beyond.

We continue to welcome applications for CPD accreditation of courses and events, and those that are approved are featured in the Lifelong Learning Platform (LLP) and on our website.

During 2023 we have received more than 950 applications for CPD accreditation. The numbers received by month were typically between 70–80 applications, but the months of March and September were particularly busy with 112 and 92 respectively received. This is an increase by more than 50 when compared against the same reporting period from last year.

Find out the latest appointments approved, and with sadness we record the deaths of some of our fellows. 

In 2020, the RCoA partnered with the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Cancer and Nutrition Collaboration and with Macmillan Cancer Support to produce guidelines on prehabilitation: ‘Principles and guidance for prehabilitation within the management and support of people with cancer’. 

One of the actions set out in the guidance was to ‘Develop a “Community of Practice” resource to provide contacts of local/regional sites and share expertise and learning from established prehabilitation programmes’.

The Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC), founded by the RCoA is dedicated to the promotion, advancement and development of perioperative care. Naturally, CPOC has a vested interest in prehabilitation and therefore set about considering how this action might be best delivered in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Support.

• Dr Dermot McGuckin, ST7 Anaesthesia & Pain Medicine, University College London Hospitals
  Email Dr McGuckin
• Dr Fausto Morell-Ducos, Consultant in Anaesthesia & Pain Medicine, University College London Hospitals
• Dr Jamie Smart, Consultant in Anaesthesia & Pain Management, University College London Hospitals
• Dr Brigitta Brandner, Consultant in Anaesthesia & Pain Management, University College London Hospitals

Opioids play an important role in facilitating recovery and return to function after surgery. 

However, it is now well-established that surgery is a risk factor for persistent postoperative opioid use,¹ and preoperative opioid use is associated with an increased risk of perioperative complications.²

Perioperative opioid stewardship is a practical approach providing a systemic, multi-layered framework aimed at minimising the risks associated with opioid use around the time of surgery, while allowing their safe administration to those patients most likely to benefit from them. It is increasingly regarded as a solution to the problem of prescription opioid-related harm but there is a lack of structured curricula to develop healthcare professionals’ skills in competent opioid management.

Read the latest letters submitted by members in Winter's Bulletin. If you'd like to submit a letter to the editor, please email us.