Surgery and surgical training is all about patients and their well being. Trainees are responsible for the delivery of a significant proportion of the patient care of the local population so the Postgraduate School of Surgery is particularly concerned with safety; ensuring that high quality surgical training takes place safely and producing surgeons who practice safely for the rest of their professional lives.
The Postgraduate School of Surgery Board carries responsibility for managing the education of surgical trainees from the beginning of core training after the Foundation years until specialist training is completed. The Postgraduate School works closely with the other twelve Severn Deanery Postgraduate Schools that collectively manage the fifty six medical and surgical specialties that currently have formal curricula.
The core values of the Postgraduate School of Surgery are:
· Excellence
· Collegiality
· Subsidiarity
We wish to support and develop not only the trainee in difficulty but also the exceptional and gifted trainee. Excellence is recognised by the Core Trainee of the Year prize, and the overall Surgical Trainee of the Year Prize. The programme also encourages trainees to seek out fellowships, present at meetings and obtain higher degrees. The trainees distinction page is not only a record of such achievements but will in time act as a useful database and contact list of previous trainees who have obtained fellowships, or obtained higher degrees.
We believe in a strong basic sciences programme of anatomy, physiology and pathology for all surgeons no matter what their level and have further developed our programme for 2009-2010. Although this is aimed principally at the core trainee, trainees at any level are welcome to attend these sessions, in particular the evening anatomy sessions. Details will be found on the Core Training calendar as they become finalised. Collegiality The Board regards it as very important in the era of reduced working hours to maximise the opportunities for learning between faculty and trainees in the theatre, clinics, wards and other learning environments. To support this, a regular series of Regional Specialist Training Days for the nine surgical specialties aimed at ST3 and above has been in existence for some time. In October 2008 we started a programme of Regional Training days for Core Surgical Trainees to cover the syllabus needed to pass the MRCS. For the 2009-2010 we have worked hard to improve and extend this programme to include technical skills days and a team working day, which all Core Trainees are expected to complete.
Previous research conducted by our trainees on surgical learning has clearly demonstrated the importance of peer-learning between trainees themselves. The website will give trainees access to one another so that they can set up professional and social networking groups. This means that trainees from the same firms, sitting exams together, engaged in research together as well as for a host of other reasons, can set up simple and effective working groups.
The term ‘subsidiarity’ means the process to devolve effective decision making to the lowest appropriate administrative level so that sensible training decisions can be made as often as possible between trainer and trainee. This also implies that we encourage trainees to take charge of their own training by taking the initiative to seek out training and research opportunities wherever they can.
Professor Richard Canter