Welcome to Wessex! We hope you will enjoy your time with us.
About the deanery
The Wessex deanery covers a wide geographical area from Dorchester in the West to Portsmouth in the East, Basingstoke to the North, and Poole to the South.
Our Training Programme Director (TPD) is Professor Thomas Brown, who works at Queen Alexandra, Portsmouth, in severe asthma and as part of the university.
Our administrative contact is James Pillinger.
For deanery related queries e-mail medicine.wx@hee.nhs.uk – the inbox is then triaged to the respiratory team.
STC trainee representatives
The respiratory Specialty Training Committee (STC) has trainee representation. Your current representatives are Henry Harcourt, Georgie Courquin and Ngu Khine. We are also responsible for the running of the website and coordinating the training days. The inbox is monitored on a reasonably frequent basis but as the trainee representatives do this work in their own time (or SDT) please do not expect rapid responses. If you have an urgent query, you should use the WhatsApp group and one of the pool of trainees will be able to help.
Please note – if you wish to be added to the mailing list and whatsapp group plesae email us your details at wessexrespiratory@gmail.com
Rotations
The four-year programme sees you rotate through both DGH and tertiary care centres. The deanery will e-mail in the early part of the calendar year to ask for your preferences for the upcoming rotations, and these will be considered together with your outstanding training requirements. Rotations are allocated on a six-monthly basis, although in most cases you will stay at the same hospital for the full 12 months. However, there are rare occasions (for example, trainees needing to rotate through specific hospitals who provide ICU training) where you may be asked to move after six months. Personal circustances are taken into account but rotations are not guaranteed.
The hospitals are:
- Dorset County Hospital (Dorchester)
- North Hampshire Hospital (Basingstoke)
- Royal Hampshire County Hospital (Winchester, forms Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with Basingstoke)
- Poole Hospital
- Royal Bournemouth Hospital (Forms University Hospitals Dorset with Poole, services being organised)
- Southampton General Hospital
- Queen Alexandra Hospital (Portsmouth)
- Salisbury District Hospital
Everyone must rotate through ICU usually at either Southampton, or Portsmouth. You will also be expected to gain experience in cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, and lung transplantation, usually in ST5 and 6 but opportunities may arise sooner and it will make later training easier if can can take them
Training days
Throughout your time in Wessex you will be expected to run at least one of our respiratory training days, usually two. These happen monthly apart from August. We try run a mix of face-to-face (kindly sponsored by drug representatives) and virtual. More information on this can be found here.
Ultrasound training
You will be encouraged to become ultrasound competent as early as possible so that you can get stuck in with pleural procedures – a large part of the respiratory registrar workload! The new ultrasound curriculum contains a nice flowchart on what you need for your logbook to get your sign off. You need to follow the pathway to gain Primary Operator status. The BTS training standards are linked here – the DOPS form is contained in the supplementary material and needs a consultant signature then scanning into your Portfolio.
ARCP
The deanery will e-mail you ahead of time to inform you of your ARCP. The panel usually meets twice a year. You will not be invited to attend but will receive feedback once the panel has issued your outcome. You can’t go far wrong if you follow what is on the ARCP decision aid which can be found on the JRCPTB website. Look for the “Decision Aid” for both Respiratory Medicine and IMT Stage 2 which gives you targets for the year.
Out of programme
Emma Kinsella has done an amazing job compiling a list of out of programme opportunities around the region, and there is a guide on the process of applying to go out of programme. Bear in mind that now the programme is four years long you won’t have a lot of time to decide, and OOP generally isn’t approved in your final year of training. OOP needs
Other bits
Stepping up into the role of respiratory registrar role can feel like a big jump, but don’t forget you aren’t expected to know everything from day one. Ask lots of questions and run through your patients during clinic lists.
Try and plan your study leave well in advance. Let the rota coordinators know you would like study leave for the training days and the dates (we will alos send) and pick what else would be useful. The BTS short courses are excellent, as are the BTS Winter and Summer meetings. Ask other trainees what they found useful.
You’ll need to keep a logbook of respiratory procedures, outpatient clinics, etc. Ellie’s template can be found below. A clinic can be counted if it lasts at least two hours – there are no minimum number of patients you need to have seen. It is good practice to keep an eye out for the results of your biopsies, EBUS outcomes etc. Start this early as it adds up quickly!
Finally, don’t neglect your GIM curriculum (even though 1/3 of the front door presentations will be respiratory related!). Keep an eye out for the GIM training days as you’ll need to have evidence of 100 hours of GIM study leave when you get to the end. You can also attend GIM conferences such as those delivered by the RCP and AGM. If you are an RCP member, the Clinical Medicine journal has some excellent CPD articles you can read and enter as reflections on your ePortfolio.
Wessex Respiratory 