Allergy Education
Allergy Update
BSACI Allergy Education Networks strategy launched
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Dr Siân Ludman Consultant in Paediatric Allergy Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust
t the inaugural Allergy Education session (in memory of Professor Tony Frew) delivered during lunch on the second day of BSACI meeting, I was delighted to be sitting with Prof Gill Vance and Dr Liz Angier presenting the BSACI Allergy Education Network’s (BAEN) first tentative steps out of theory and into practice. The concept of the BAEN has been discussed in an article in CEA1 last year, however I am glad of the space in this edition of Allergy Update to have more opportunity to show people where we go from here.
The BAEN strategy has now been ratified by the BSACI council, and whilst to this point Gill, Liz and I have taken the lead on certain sections, it has taken a village of people to create this document. This has all been ably led and enthusiastically driven by Prof Judith Holloway who has really enabled this strategy to come to life. Figure 1 below summarises how this document was initially created.
The main working party found that the strategy easily broke down in to three different parts to focus on: Undergraduate, Community and Hospital. Each part has been designed to provide and showcase: Benefits for patients Benefits for you Benefits for your institution
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To give a little more information on these three strands we presented three slides captured below at the education session. You can see from these images that there are common themes throughout the document. These main themes include sustainability, guidance on quality education and resources from day 1 of undergraduate training to retirement as well as collaboration and networking around the entire UK. Working strictly in the three sections of Undergraduate, Community and Hospital does not best serve the next phase of implementation. Cross cutting themes were identified including marketing, curricula, competencies and educational resources. These are working across each section to provide inclusive and seamless
Figure 1. Summary of the creation of the BSACI Allergy Education Networks strategy
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