Update from SAC Marjan Jahangiri

With an increase in both cardiac and thoracic clinical activities in recent months, opportunities for training have increased. I hope that the myriad of problems, ranging from a significantly reduced number of operations to the fear of post-operative Covid-related complications, as well as patients facing greater hurdles to come in for surgery are less now.

There are some developments, since I last wrote in June this year. The 7-year curriculum is implemented and our liaison members have been assisting with its integration into the training programmes. To provide a more comprehensive training programme and planning for future consultants in paediatric and transplantation, we have introduced a 3-6 month out of programme option for trainees. These will be recognised attachments. This initiative has been led by Tim Jones and Steven Tsui and we are grateful for their efforts.

There have been extensive discussions regarding work force planning in thoracic surgery and there will be a shortage of thoracic surgeons in the near future. We have therefore been discussing the introduction of a pure thoracic entry into the training programme. From 2022, there will be a new entry at the level of ST4 for pure thoracic surgery. The person specification and entry criteria will be available from Wessex Deanery who are administering the National Selection for 2022. This initiative has been led by colleagues in thoracic surgery, Ehab Bishay, Aman Coonar and Sri Rathinam, and with the oversight of Steven Tsui as SAC Vice Chair. I thank them hugely.

The National Selection is taking place in February 2022 and will be led by Jonathan Hyde and Steven Tsui. The specifics will be shared with you through Wessex Deanery. Jonathan and Steven ensure a robust, fair and transparent selection process based on their experience of previous years and the feedback they receive from trainees and trainers. After many years Jonathan will be stepping down as the Lead, Steven will take his position and Ehab Bishay is our newly appointed Deputy Lead. We thank Jonathan enormously for all his work at the SAC and at the National Selection. Prakash Punjabi is leaving the SAC and we thank him for all his excellent work, in particular in the area of work force planning. We have made significant changes to ISCP which we hope you find helpful. These include easier understanding of types and parts of the operations performed. We thank Abdul Badran, our trainee representative, who has helped with this. We have also introduced the academic criteria with its various domains for our trainees to record on ISCP. The SAC June meeting will be held at the College and I hope that our Training Programmes Director colleagues can attend. In the meantime, if any of the Consultant colleagues or trainees need anything, please contact me and your liaison members at the SAC. n