Foreword

Welcome to this edition of your Deanery Newsletter and early news about what is happening in 2022.

First off we let you know about the NES Annual Virtual Conference scheduled for the end of April, where you are invited to attend and learn what is current in broader health education, across Scotland. A great opportunity to hear form other disciplines and take part in interprofessional learning. We follow with a piece on the Scottish Internal Medicine Quality Improvement Conference that took place last November and highlight just a few of the fantastic projects that featured. The level of innovation shown by trainees who took part and their desire to improve cannot be understated.  

Doctors from minority ethnic backgrounds face significant challenges within medical education and to help us better understand these barriers, in the Scottish context, we have are collaborating with the University of Aberdeen to study the lived experiences of minority ethic doctors in Scotland.Details of how to become involved are provided.

We follow this with links to an article on value management and an introduction to a British Medical Journal resource to help manage comorbidities together with an introduction to our new Technology Enhanced Learning Team and a further update from our Bereavement Workstream. We also thought you may be interested in the wider work we do to support undergraduate clinical teaching through our role in disbursing and overseeing Additional Cost Of Teaching (ACT) funds to training units and practices, across Scotland. The recently published Annual ACT Report for 20/21, available via a link, provides more information.  

Sadly, this is my last foreword to the newsletter. I retire at the end of March having, I hope, left the Scotland Deanery and the NES Medical Directorate in good shape, truly believing that better training leads to better care for patients, both now and in the future. Dr Emma Watson has been appointed to be the next Director of Medicine, beginning on 1 April 2022. Dr Watson has experience as Deputy Medical Director in NHS Highland and as Chair of the Directors of Medical Education for Scotland. She has extensive experience as a practitioner, academic and educationalist and is a recognised leader in medical education in Scotland, including previous work as a Senior Medical Officer in the Scottish Government Workforce and Strategic Change Directorate. 

I wish Dr Watson all the best for the future and thank colleagues both past and present for helping to make Scotland a great place to train and learn. 

Professor Stewart Irvine