Dear Colleagues,

At this time of year it is customary to reflect back on the year gone by.

As usual, the ongoing struggles of limited capacity in our health services cause much frustration to you in trying to look after as many patients as you can. However the tens of thousands of operations, explorations and consultations that are carried out in our hospitals and clinics deliver much needed care to all who received it.

Irish surgery is incredibly dynamic, creative and service focussed. The strong ethos of training and professional development can been seen by the number of training activities logged in our logbook.

We awarded 56 CCSTs and enrolled 80 new core trainees and appointed 54 new Higher Specialty surgical Trainees to our programmes.

We conducted 27 hospital site inspections. Over 900 surgeons and doctors enrolled in the CPD Support Scheme.

We ran in excel of 200 training days at our Dublin campus, this includes specialist training courses for Surgical and Emergency Medicine Trainees as well as CPD courses. Surgical training courses are delivered in 4 regional centres including Cork and Galway.

All of this activity demonstrates a vibrant surgical community focussed on professionalism and training. We could not do any of this without the huge support of our surgical trainers and the commitment of our trainees.

All of us here in RCSI Surgical Affairs are privileged to support you in all these important activities and its impact on patient care. On behalf of us all, we wish you all a very happy Christmas and we look forward to seeing you during

Kieran Ryan

Managing Director

Surgical Affairs