The Irish Surgical Training Group was set up to provide trainees with a voice within RCSI. We represent trainees within the college at various committees, and have representatives from ST1, ST2 and each surgical specialty on the committee. Trainee-centred events are also run throughout the year.

This year's events began in November with the annual Careers Day for interns and students interested in surgery. 22 aspiring surgeons attended and there was great engagement from all the committee members who gave talks on their chosen fields. This was followed by our 'Aspiring Surgeons Research Symposium', a selection of presentations from medical students, interns and trainees. The winner, difficult to choose due to the exceptional quality of research presented by his peers, was Patrick Boland, who presented on his paper 'International Survey on Current Management Issues of Acute Appendicitis'

Following on from the success of the Careers Day, the next big event in the ISTG calendar is the Trainee Session at RCSI Charter Day. Again well attended by over 60 international faculty and trainees, the topic was "Resilience in Surgical Training: Nature or Nurture?" and made for an animated concluding debate: despite Ms. Sarah Early's best efforts, Mr. Sean Martin prevailed and the house voted against the motion "This House Believes We Need a More Supportive System, Not More Resilient Trainees”. The day concluded with the Bosco O'Mahony Lecture from Mr. Justin Geoghegan on the perils of a surgical career, imparting his extensive experience to the trainees in the room.

The Silver Scalpel award is presented to the annual trainee-nominated 'Best Trainer', but it being the last event of the year and having planned it for the 26th of June meant that it had to be postponed. The award winner this year is Ms. May Cleary in Trauma and Orthopaedics. We hope to present her award at next year's dinner along with the general surgeon that will be chosen by trainees in 2021.

All in all, Ms. Christina Buckley has been presiding effortlessly over the committee, running events smoothly and successfully and representing trainees on various issues such as increased train the trainer course capacity throughout the year, and I wish her the best of luck with future endeavours. We have a new website which should be up and running in the upcoming weeks so please keep an eye on this for the dates of events in the coming year: www.istg.ie