The first Dukes’ Club regional networking events have recently been held in Oxford and Mersey.
Many thanks to Julia Merchant our Oxford deanery representative and Rachael Clifford our Mersey deanery representative for organising theses hugely successful events.
Oxford
The Dukes’ Club, in collaboration with the Hugh Cairns society hosted an event ‘Careers in Colorectal Surgery’ at the John Radcliffe Hospital. 20 + medical students and surgical trainees attended. Over a glass or two of wine, the attendees heard the perspectives of Mr David James, newly appointed colorectal consultant surgeon at OUH and Julia Merchant ST8 in general surgery and the Duke’s rep for Oxford. Mr James took the speakers through common colorectal cases and discussed some of the latest innovations in the field, including his own specialty, robotic surgery. He was able to impart his own passion for the field and hopefully inspire the next generation of budding colorectal surgeons. Julia gave a personal view on life as a colorectal trainee. The general feedback was positive and the student went away armed with a little knowledge in inform their future career decisions.
Thanks to all participants and well done Julie for organising. It sounds like a great day and we are looking forward to rolling out more of these days over the next year in other regions.
Mersey
The Dukes’ Club, in collaboration with ASiT, held the first Mersey Foundation Surgical Skills networking day on 23rd October 2019 in Liverpool.
The oversubscribed day saw 18 foundation year 2 doctors guided through instrument handling, knot tying, suturing and small bowel anastomoses. The afternoon sessions also included tips on preparation of a portfolio, careers advice for applications to core surgical training and lots of time to ask questions and get to know our faculty ranging from Consultant to Core trainee.
We would like to thank all of our enthusiastic faculty, including Mersey Chapter representative Nicola Eardley, for all of their help preparing teaching material and throughout the day. The feedback was excellent and at the request of our trainees we hope to make this a regular course in the diary!