The formation of the RCSI Faculty of Surgical Trainers is a very important development for us and we are grateful for the commitment from our Chair, Ms Bridget Egan and all members of the Faculty Committee. The impact of COVID-19 on surgical training has been very significant. It has not affected all trainees and all specialties in the same way. In some cases trainees were redeployed to other services, others only saw emergency surgery and others attended private hospital sector. However, as always, Irish Surgical trainers remained committed to training and supporting their trainees. Trainers innovated with local online teaching, specialties re-organised and identified high quality webinars to support all. We are grateful for the flexibility and patience shown by all our trainers in adapting to new processes but at the same time upholding high quality and standards.
The current pandemic poses challenges that no surgeon has experienced previously and as a community of dedicated professionals surgeons throughout the county have demonstrated selfless commitment to their patients by adapting to the new reality that now exists and continuing each day to devise new ways of working that will lead to improvements in patient care. Undoubtedly this dedication will be the surgical community’s legacy as we move forward.
Following an online application process interviews for the Core Surgical Training programme July 2020 intake took place on Tuesday 4th February in RCSI.
Over the past number of years annual Bootcamp has become an established first step on the surgical training path. This year, Bootcamp will go ahead but in a different format due to restrictions.
With the onset of Cov-19 and the inability to run the normal training days in the college and limited theatre work for our trainees, many of the specialties have now embraced the new norm “webinar” style lectures, ground rounds and case based discussions to ensure continued interaction and teaching at some level across the training years from Core Surgical Training to Specialist Training.
The College recognises that the role of a Surgical Trainer is a voluntary one and the skill and dedication of surgical trainers throughout the country continues to ensure surgical trainer standards are kept at a high level.
Our innovative part-time postgraduate programme in Human Factors in Patient Safety is now available to complete in one year as a Postgraduate Diploma or over two years as a Postgraduate Master’s Degree. The programme brochure can be viewed here.
The College, in consultation with both trainers and trainees, has developed a mentoring programme which aims to ensure every surgical trainee has the opportunity and access to the benefits that structured mentoring by an experienced surgeon can offer.
The HSE National Health Library and Knowledge Service (NHLKS) have now made the BMJ’s decision support tool BMJ Best Practice available to healthcare professionals and patients across the Republic of Ireland.
The HSE International Medical Graduates (IMG) Recruitment programme which has been running for a number of years and is now an established part of the training landscape in Ireland.
The Spark Innovation Programme is an initiative that encourages healthcare providers to develop and implement their ideas so that we can improve our health service.
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