Foreword

Welcome to the new training year and the August edition of your Deanery newsletter.

We have a bumper newsletter this month as we try to ensure we cover things that will be useful to new starts – new graduates, new to the UK, new to Scotland or new to a training programme. We hope that there are articles of interest to those who are now feeling well established in training and for our trainers too.

Our first article introduces the resources available on the Scotland Deanery website: Scotland Deanery | NHS Education for Scotland | NES. These include information on Study Leave, information for International Medical Graduates and who your NES Training Programme Administrator is and how to contact them. It would be great to get feedback on these pages to ensure they are as useful as possible.

Still on the theme of those new to training we have an excellent article from Dr. Samantha Gaw on ‘Thriving in FY1’. Recommended reading for all foundation doctors who have just joined us and everyone else – it may bring back memories for you, it certainly did for me.

The MyPsych Foundation Doctors Toolkit: your one-stop-shop for digital psychiatry support is an important educational toolkit for Foundation doctors that is accessible and reliable, is featured in the newsletter, click the link to down load the app - Thanks to Dr Mutch and the team in NHS Lothian.

Still on training we have another trainee contribution with a piece on Less Than Full Time training and how it could benefit your training. We welcome applications to train less than full time and will work with you and your placement health board to try to find a balance that works. 

Next, we have a celebration of the fantastic work and collaborations of 10 years of the Scottish Clinical Leadership Fellows. An event was held in Edinburgh for this milestone and thanks to Mathew Gillespie for putting this together.

Surviving in scrubs – It is often not spoken about but working in healthcare can sometimes feel uncomfortable, along with the stress of the job the behaviour or actions of colleagues may make you uncomfortable – as part of ensuring Scotland is the one of the best countries to train and work in as a healthcare professional we want to build strategies that stop these behaviours being normalised- Talk, Listen and Know.

We have an article on the Combined Infection training bootcamp which details how trainers used innovative education methods to deliver intense and practical induction experience to ensure trainees felt more confident taking on a new role and it was a great success. This innovation has been recognised by the Royal College Of Pathologists - well done.

For our educators we are delighted to be able to support study leave claims. Educators who are either employed by or hold an SLA for educational activity with NES will be supported to undertake CPD that is linked to their educator role, rather than their clinical role, to support their professional development. We really appreciate all that you do. 

The NES Bereavement team have their free 2023 conference coming up on 29th November and their article has full details. There’s also information regarding a new series of podcasts series ‘Talking about Bereavement’. This may well be useful to you.

Remember to keep submitting articles or suggestions for content.

As we enjoy the last few weeks of summer please take some time to enjoy the outdoors and all that Scotland has to offer whether that be the scenery, the history, or the culture and most importantly take care and take breaks.

Professor Emma Watson
Executive Medical Director, NHS Education for Scotland 

If you have work you would like to highlight in this newsletter, contact Scotland Deanery.