February Journal Club

Firstly, congrats to everyone who has finished CST interviews. Its not to much longer before you find out the good news (fingers crossed). Anyway, I have decided to choose a systematic review on Negative pressure wound therapy ("Vac dressings") for this month's journal club. I find this subject incredibly interesting and have been working on a review of my own after being inspired by Dr Paul Liu who was the Chief of Plastics at Rhode Island Hospital where I did my placement last summer. As always, the article details are below and I will put up my comments in the next few days. I would be interested in what every one else thinks.

J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg. 2012 Jan 9. [Epub ahead of print]

The methodology of negative pressure wound therapy: Separating fact from fiction.

Glass GE, Nanchahal J.

Core Surgery Applications - Part I (the form)

So, most people will be finishing off their forms by now and I thought I'd thrown in a few last minute tips on completing your applications.

1) Firstly, brevity is essential! Most of the questions are limited to 65 words!! Ensure every word counts but write in clear and concise sentences. Bullet points look scruffy and unprofessional. You do not have space to list every achievement so highlight the most impressive and quickly mention the others.

2) Be honest. Whilst its important to "big up" your achievements, lying will only hurt your chances at interview as they can be very thorough with questioning. Also this is a probity issue and can lead to referral to the GMC.

3) Teaching is a very important part of being a surgeon. Don't just list your teaching experiences. If you have organised teaching then explain this, mention any feedback you have received and any plans you have to build on your experiences. Also, if you have had any training or attended a course to help with teaching then also state this.

4) Audits. Be honest and explain how you contributed to each audit. Also, whether outcomes were implemented and if re-audit has been done (state this as that's key to finishing the audit loop). If the audit has been presented or published then state this too. If you have done tons of audits then state how many and highlight a few examples rather than listing everything.

5) Commitment to speciality. This is very personal and I think you need to show how long you have been interested in the speciality and how you have explored it further. Mention electives, courses, placements, research, if you have sat any exams etc...

Anyway, I know this is brief but just wanted to give a few ideas out there. Please note, I am only posting my opinion but I do not know what the Deaneries are looking for and how they mark these questions. This is just advise based on experience of having applied last year and as such should not be taken as anything more than this. I do not accept any liability for any unsuccessful applications (sorry).

Good luck!!!

Amel

Journal Club

We are starting a monthly online journal club to try and stimulate discussion about the latest research in surgery. We will pick one article per month and post it a few days before we post our appraisal of the paper. Then we hope this will stimulate debate amongst our readers. If there are any particular papers you wish to submit then email us and better still if you would like to contribute to journal club then we would also love to hear from you. The reason we are doing this is it is difficult to keep up with what's happening in research on top of all the clinical and extra-curricular activities. We hope this will help in some small way.

The article I have chosen for this month is:

Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2011 Mar;268(3):405-14. Epub 2010 Sep 15.
Laryngeal transplantation in minipigs: vascular, myologic and functional outcomes.
Birchall MA, Kingham PJ, Murison PJ, Ayling SM, Burt R, Mitchard L, Jones A, Lear P, Stokes CR, Terenghi G, Bailey M, Macchiarini P.

You can find it on pubmed and sign in via athens/institutional login to get the full text.

Amel

Website Renovation Part deux...

Hi all

So sorry but moving the website along has proven much more time consuming than I initially anticipated. I can however give you a sneak peak on www.iwanttobeasurgeon.com. There is still so much content to move over including anatomy and videos of clinical skills. However it will all be so much easier to access once its all up there :) You will note that we have added a new research skills section which will contain articles on how to conduct research, how to write up papers and how to get published. We will also be introducing a monthly journal club onto this blog and I hope you will be able to partcipate by adding your comments :)

Anyway, good luck everyone sitting exams and especially those who have been emailing questions to us. Please write back and let everyone know how you get on.

Amel

The story so far...

In spite of lack of activity since our last post we have been busy in the non virtual world. Just presented a poster at the Associations of Surgeons In Training (ASIT) annual conference with Mr T. Amer. (above).  Surprising number of familiar faces (you know who you are). Rom and I have also been trying to finish off a couple of audits and research projects. We will actually be uploading some articles on how to write papers as well as design projects very soon. The plan for the net two weeks is as follows:

1) wrap up audit on surgical prophylaxis 

2) Get website up and running

3) submit posts at least 3 times per week to this blog.

Anyway off to work on website. Do watch this space it'll be worth it, I promise).

Amel