Foreword

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the October edition of our Deanery Newsletter. It seems like a short time ago we were welcoming you to Scotland, to new roles, or to advancing your experience as more senior resident doctors. It is time for recruitment cycles to open again and for those of you who are applying for core or speciality training to enter the selection process. The processes are stressful, and we acknowledge that, as a team here in NES we are working with UK colleagues to improve the processes year on year and the feedback we get from you all is helpful in that space.

Within NES we have a leadership group made up of resident doctors in training, fellowship roles, and locally employed doctors. Within this group resident doctors have an opportunity to shape the conversation – whether it be choices we make in a challenging fiscal environment, or how we adapt medical education delivery to meet the needs of or communities – if you would want to get involved in this group please reach out to Lesley Metcalf, General Manager for Training Management - nes.emdoffice@nhs.scot -  and we can share more information.

Within the newsletter this month there is a focus on primary care, and on delivering care in our more rural and remote areas. There are career planning webinars highlighted too.

One of our Scottish Clinical Leadership Fellows, Suzy Harkness, attended the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. Suzy has given us a flavour of her experiences along with some great photos. Please have a look.

October is Health Literacy month. A person’s health literacy affects their ability to gain access to, understand and use information to make choices about their own health and care. To raise awareness of health literacy and the techniques that can be used to support health communication, NHS Scotland library and knowledge services are planning a range of activities. They can all be accessed in our article.

Next up we are pleased to announce that the dates of the 2025 NES Conference 24^th and 25^th April and the closing date for seminar abstract submissions is 8 December 2024 and the closing date for open paper and poster abstract submissions is 9 February 2025.  I hope you can make time and get involved in this fantastic, free online event.

Registration is now open for the fifth NES Bereavement Education Annual Conference, to be held on Tuesday 3^rd December 2024: ‘Bereavement in the modern world: Kindness in the chaos’. All information on the free, one-day virtual event for health and social care staff can be found in this item.

As Autumn is drawing in and the nights and mornings are getting darker it is even more important to ensure you get a break in the daylight regularly through the week. For those of you new to Scotland the trade off of the beautiful long summer days, are cosy dark winter evenings!  Please remember taking breaks is an essential part of your working day, if you are struggling to get breaks raise this with your team, your clinical or educational supervisor or one of the managers in your area.

Best regards,

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.