News and Opportunities

Breaking news

• New BTS/ICS guidelines have been released on “Ventilatory Management of Acute Hypercapnic Respiratory Failure“. There is a useful summary in the BMJ Open Respiratory Research, including tables and flow charts on: indications for IMV in AECOPD; essential requirements of an NIV service; discharge checklist after an episode of acute respiratory failure; and a summary of recommendations.
• There is also a new Asthma Care Bundle from the BTS designed to be used primarily for patients discharged from A&E following an acute asthma attack, but also suitable for use in admissions wards. How will you support implementation in your Trust to ensure best care and decrease deaths from asthma?
• Tips from the latest TPMC:
  • ARCPs will be on 18th July – make sure you will be available to attend
  • In the EoE repatriation of posts we will only lose 5 NTNs from our rotation, but will still lose all the previously mentioned hospitals. Discussions are ongoing as to how the transition will be managed
  • If any trainee wishes to CCT early it is essential to flag this early to the TPD, document this request on the ePortfolio, and make a formal request to the LETB to bring forward the date of the PYA. Of course, proof of acquisition of all requirements/competencies will be required to consider an early CCT.
  • Trainees returning to clinical practice after time out are advised to plan ahead to ensure a smooth return to work. This issue was featured in this week’s BMJ careers. We have collated some guidance and tips in a new post. Let us know if we’ve missed anything.
• Are you level 1 Ultrasound accredited? Do you have the skills necessary to lead small group teaching of the principles and practice of thoracic ultrasound for CMTs/ACCS trainees/A&E docs/early Respiratory SpRs? If yes get in touch and we’ll pass your details on to the co-ordinator of a (commercial) London USS course. Several Respiratory and Radiology Consultants and SpRs from our hospitals already teach on the course, and they are looking to expand their pool of facilitators and future lecturers. Experience in teaching, a certificate for the portfolio, the chance to try out the latest USS machines, and a (pretty decent) fee are available in exchange for your time and skills.

Training Programme

• Notes from the most recent NET Training day on 31st March at North Mid will be on the site soon.
• The next confirmed training day is on Wed 8th June at The Whittington Hospital. We are also looking forward to the recently announced Pan-London CF Training Day on 29th June. Why not brush up on new and emerging therapies for CF in this week’s BMJ?
• A GIM Training Day has been announced! It will be at Southend University Hospital on Friday 24th June 09:30 – 16:15 with a varied programme spanning many organs! You need to fill in the booking form, which is sadly not on EventBrite, but is a PDF. Get a copy via your email or by clicking here: GIM day form Southend 16.  Apparently UCLP are in the process of organising GIM training days until the end of 2018 – let’s hope they confirm and advertise the dates very soon.
• Do you have ideas for future themes we should cover in Respiratory training days? Let us know. The teams organising upcoming days are trying to match up to gaps identified by our ongoing curriculum mapping, but are keen to hear suggestions.
• Don’t forget to have a look at the ‘clinic aide-memoires’ on the Resources page and ‘favourite papers‘ from Consultants around the region. If your Consultant is not on there, please encourage them to recommend a useful paper.
• Many of you will have received emails from us requesting information we can use on the prospectus pages about each hospital on the rotation. Please consider sending info on your current or previous jobs directly by email, or through the anonymous survey. If you are currently out of programme please send information on your most recent, most liked or most hated post!
• At the last training day some trainees expressed disappointment that the training programme has not reliably provided monthly training sessions (no dates planned for April or May this year, although now 2 in June). A number of trainees volunteered to arrange 1 training day a year, at which trainees would present topics of interest (there is significant expertise amongst our trainees, in a diverse range of subjects) and invite external speakers. There seems to be a growing trend for trainee-organised training days in other specialties too. We will be discussing this further with the TPMC. If you would be happy to help we’d be very grateful – volunteers to speak, invite speakers, and ideas for innovative and engaging teaching methods would be very welcome. Please get in touch.

External Training

• Upcoming Teach-Ins at the Royal College of Physicians include: End of Life Care management and communication on 5th May. These are free, and usually include high quality up-to-date speakers and presentations.  A good source of GIM CPD points and a bonus of living in London. The RCP are streaming some events, including Teach-ins, and has an archive so you can catch up with events you missed.
• Upcoming BTS short courses include: Interventional Bronchoscopy and Thoracoscopy in Preston 25-26th May, Preparing for the SCE in York 22nd June and Lung Transplantation on 22nd September.
• Don’t forget courses on occupational lung disease at the National Heart and Lung Institute. The NHLI team are also running new courses: introductory medical statistics course (2 days) and intermediate medical statistics course (1 day) on 26-27th May and 24th June. Dr Jo Szram also invites trainees to shadow in the Occupational Lung Disease clinic. See the FAQs for more information.
• The RSM are holding a study day on Lung Transplantation on 9th June – an alternative to the BTS course. See the post on Lung Transplantation training for more details.
• A source of reasonably priced and high quality GIM points are the Cambridge Medical Seminars .
• The BMA runs training events available to members. These are both in person events and through Webinars. 
• The BTS site Respiratory Futures also holds webinars. There are plans for a dedicated trainee section on this site in the coming months: watch this space…

Jobs/Research opportunities

• There was recently an opportunity to join Dr Carby’s team as a clinical fellow and educator in Respiratory Transplant Medicine. Keep an eye on your emails for future clinical fellow opportunities which come up ad-hoc.
• Prof Mike Roberts recently looked for trainees to help analyse data from the National COPD audit programme, and to write papers. Hopefully you got in touch if you were interested.
• The ERS has a number of short and long-term fellowships to fund research, which may bean alternative to MRC/Wellcome/NIHR fellowships for some trainees.
• The Peel and Rothwell Jackson Postgraduate Travelling Fellowships are now open for applications. Up to £30,000 is available for a fellowship in order to complete research, advanced study, or the acquisition of a new clinical skill unlikely to be available in the UK. Up to two fellowships will be awarded in this round. The closing date is Friday 4th November. For more details see the Peel Trust website.
• The BTS highlights a number of funding opportunities relevant to Respiratory trainees on its’ pages.
• Remember that even if specific research jobs are not advertised, Consultants with academic positions are always looking for enthusiastic SpRs to join them. They may have pots of money for projects, or may have ideas that could become an MD/PhD. You’ll never know if you don’t ask. Ask around, and get in touch with anyone on the research pages for more info.
• Wondering whether you want to pursue a future in academic Respiratory medicine? Why not watch the BTS video featuring Dr John Hurst?

Committees

• TPMC
  • The next TPMC will be on 28th June. Please get in touch to raise issues you want us to bring up. Let us know what concerns you so we can be an effective trainee voice on the committee.
• BTS 
  • Remember that a number of our trainees hold positions on BTS committees: Abi Moore has joined the BTS Specialist Trainee Advisory Group committee, focusing on education and training and LJ Smith is ‘Digital Champion’; Jess Potter is on the TB Specialist Advisory Group; Ricardo Jose and Hannah Woodcock are on the Science and Research Committee; Elspeth Potton is on the Lung Infection Specialist Advisory Group; Zaheer Mangera is on the Tobacco Specialist Advisory Group. Why not ask them about their roles at the next training day, and consider joining a committee yourself? The BTS frequently advertises for trainees to join a range of advisory groups, committees and working parties. If a committee doesn’t have trainee representation why not email the Chair and offer your services?
• MRCP/JRPCTB
  • Changes are afoot in the world of general internal medicine. Plans for Shape of Training implementation continue, but whatever happens with this there will be change.  There is a new curriculum in the pipeline, and plans for a new assessment process. This is potentially a very good thing! The aim is for fewer tick-boxes, and more meaningful assessments and there is real appetite to make something better than the madness of what we have now. ‘Competencies in Practice’ are the new proposal, based on ‘Entrustable Professional Activities’ in use in Canada and elsewhere. These are more holistic assessments of tasks, rather than the atomisation to fragmented bits of tasks that have to be individually ticked-off that we have at the moment. A proof of concept study is planned very soon. Get involved, try out the forms, give your feedback! You can change the future and make sure it’s better than the present! Find the email from David Tihanyi, fill in the form and get involved. Any questions? Get in touch.

• ATS 2016 13-18th May, San Francisco
• IPCRG 25-28th May, Amsterdam
• International Sleep Medicine Course and Hands-on meeting 6th-9th June, Cardiff
• BTS Summer Meeting 23-24th June, York
  • early bird deadline 5th May
• COPD10 Conference 29th June – 1st July, Birmingham.
• ERS International Congress 2016 3-7th September, London
• BTS Winter meeting 7-9th December, London
  • abstract submission now open
• Annual BTOG Conference 25-27th January 2017, Dublin

Other

• We hope you are keeping your morale up in these times of uncertainty regarding the junior doctor contract. Support each other, and your colleagues in other healthcare professions. If you are struggling and would like to talk please approach you educational supervisor, get in touch, or consider contacting the Professional Support Unit at HEE.