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NACT NEWSLETTER - October 2007, Volume 12 No. 4

Why read this issue of Clinical Tutor? Here are a few quotes from our authors to whet your appetite.
Having the study leave budget is key to making the role of a clinical tutor/DME autonomous, creative and satisfying.
In her Chairman�s Musings, our chair, Liz Spencer outlines some of they key issues facing us in the months to come: the effect of postgraduate schools on postgraduate tutors, the local organisation of postgraduate medical education, the management of the study leave, induction, doctors in difficulty, and funding are all areas where she and the NACT-UK executive continue to work and campaign on your behalf.

NACT NEWSLETTER - April 2007, Volume 12 No. 2

Guest Editor Shirley Bowles
It is obvious that, for the past few months, the MTAS process for recruitment and selection into specialist training has been an all-consuming issue for all those involved in postgraduate medical education. In fact, features in the national press, on TV and radio have also generated an unprecedented interest in the training of doctors in those outside the medical profession. Perhaps, in a perverse way, this is to be welcomed?

NACT NEWSLETTER - January 2007, Volume 12 No. 1

This is Tony Blair�s last Labour conference, we are told. By the time you read this the MTAS application process for Run Through Training (RTT) will have commenced. It is quite clear that this last piece of Modernising Medical Careers is going to be the most difficult with the greater implications to Trainees and the Service. Unlike all other introductions of training reorganisations that I can think of have really involved the service. Calman and even the recent Foundation Programme just happened and the greater NHS barely noticed. This time, and for good reason, the whole process of the timetable for appointments, the numbers of posts at all levels and the implication when in August all the F1, F2 and ST1 and ST2 trainees change has been debated within Trusts. Sadly the debate was not always as well informed as it might have been. Clearly some Trusts are better prepared than others but at least it has raised the profile of Clinical Tutors/Directors of Medical Education significantly.

NACT NEWSLETTER - October 2006, Volume 11 No. 4

This is Tony Blair�s last Labour conference, we are told. Both major parties are dominated by a furious debate about where they are, how they got here and where the public wants them to go in the future.

Speaking of conferences, we are in the run up to the NACT Winter Conference. On the agenda, the consultation on the PMETB/ GMC proposals for quality assurance of training programmes, the CMO�s report on recertification and revalidation. We hope your views have been communicated to your regional council member. Liam Donaldson is quoted in Doctors and Society (Royal College of Physicians 2005): �I think there has been a loss of medical involvement in policy making to the detriment of the quality of policy�. I read recently that in 1952, Richard Crossman warned one of our major political parties that it had �lost its way not only because it lacks a map of the new country it is crossing, but because it thinks a map unnecessary for experienced travellers�

NACT NEWSLETTER - July 2006, Volume 11 No. 3

The challenge for Postgraduate Clinical Tutors is to train more specialists in a shortened time, in a shorter working week, maintaining educational standards, improving the quality of care, and minimising financial risk to our trusts. In this issue, Tom Crichlow, from Shrewsbury and Telford, describes the 2006 NACT Spring Meeting in Belfast and says the meeting �posed many questions, pointed out pitfalls and dangers� but was �short on answers.�

NACT NEWSLETTER - April 2006, Volume 11 No. 2

It has been a hectic month with the well attended Foundation Programme Pilot Sharing Event which Alistair Thompson reports. It was good to see so many Foundation Programme Training Directors (FPTDs) & F2 Trainees at this Event sharing their experiences of the F2 Pilots up and down the country. There was a general feeling that NACT should arrange a similar event annually to encourage the sharing. For this purpose NACT are revamping the website to have a Foundation Programme Directors section, accessible only to members, where education session plans, handouts etc can be shared. None of us have time to reinvent the wheel. If you have examples of Good Practice that you would like to share please start sending them to Jane in the office.

NACT NEWSLETTER - January 2006, Volume 11 No. 1

Happy New Year to you all � I have the feeling that 2006 will prove to be just as challenging (if not more so!) for postgraduate medical education than 2005. Having our study leave budget reduced midway through the year, makes our budgetary management difficult and our popularity amongst our trainees nosedive! Externally numerous uncertainties continue with merging SHAs, the fate of WDCs and future roles of Deaneries with the increasing threat to MADEL funding. Whilst inhouse we beaver away supporting the F1 programme and preparing for F2. Many tutors have been involved in the recent recruitment to F1 through the M-DAP process. Rob Palmer updates us on the process. At the recent Council meeting this was discussed � although the process is transparent and could be defended if challenged it may not be �fair� as it is difficult for a student to shine.

NACT NEWSLETTER - August 2005, Volume 10 No. 3

It is a hectic time of year. I have just returned from back-to-back conferences and have tried to give you the flavour of both the Joint Conference in Norwich and the Annual Scientific Meeting of ASME in Newcastle. Both were enjoyable but for me the ASME conference gave me more to think about. Lots of free paper and poster presentation from all aspects of medical education � some polished research and others just ideas being thought through. I hope next year there will be more presentations from Clinical Tutors.

NACT NEWSLETTER - April 2005, Volume 10 No. 2

I thought I would dedicate this edition of the newsletter to NACT. What is it and where are we going? I hope that this newsletter being distributed this time by both paper and electronic format will ensure a wide circulation and would encourage you to forward to colleagues in Deaneries, SHAs, Medical Schools as well as throughout your Trusts.

NACT NEWSLETTER - January 2005, Volume 10 No. 1

I feel 2005 will be an eventful and pivotal year for Clinical Tutors and for NACT. MMC and the challenge of implementing Foundation Programmes in August 2005 are vexing us all. We had an excellent Winter Meeting around Assessment which was very well evaluated by those who attended and Jane has provided an excellent report for those who couldn�t make it. Careers guidance has been discussed in many fora and I include two articles on this subject. I have been invited to sit on the Editorial Board of �TARGET Medicine� a new magazine giving Career Information to medical students.

NACT NEWSLETTER - October 2004, Volume 9 No. 4

I really should have learnt either to juggle or be a magician as these seem to be Essential Skills for Clinical Tutors � maybe a thought Gordon for the next ECT course in Taunton! Life as a Clinical Tutor continues to be a fraught with an ever-increasing load and NO time. We have all just survived the induction process in August � how are we supposed to fit in all the �mandatory� stuff to satisfy CNST at whatever Level your Trust is trying to achieve, how do we fend off the specialist with that �very important info that all trainees require�, what about Risk management � can that be delivered in a 15 or 30 min. slot (neither is long enough), can we sign off all the trainees as competent in their Basic Life Support � in fact we are required to sign them off as competent to do their job!!!!!

NACT NEWSLETTER - July 2004, Volume 9 No. 3

The NACT spring meeting was held in May at Petwood House in Lincolnshire. This fine black and white building was originally built in 1905 and during the war was used by the RAF as a officers mess. A number of squadrons had their officers mess at Petwood including the famous 617 Squadron that later became known as the Dambusters. For those of us who had late night drinks in the squadron bar there was a unique collection of war time RAF memorabilia.

NACT NEWSLETTER - April 2004, Volume 9 No. 2

First of all may I apologise for the extremely late arrival of your �January� Clinical Tutor. This was due to a problem at the printers and they have reassured us that it won�t happen again.
MMC continues to move on a pace and Clinical Tutors are now getting involved in creating Foundation Programmes. There is still little firm guidance from the centre and the advice is to discuss with your Deanery what the local strategy is and start recruiting supporters in your Trust. As I mentioned in the last letter you can�t do this change alone and you need to network with many people and create an MMC committee to help you instigate the radical change that is required..

NACT NEWSLETTER - January 2004, Volume 9 No. 1

What a challenge to undertake the editorship of this newsletter at a time of such change!!
Trusts merging, new consultant contracts, reorganisation of PRHO posts, EWTD, CNST where does it end. The expectations of CTs now is so different to when I started the role 3 years ago. And where is NACT in all this � the direction of NACT was hotly debated at our annual 2-day Councilmeeting held in Warwick on January 9th and 10th. More later.

NACT NEWSLETTER - October 2003, Volume 8 No. 4

Well, here is my last letter to you as Chairman. Despite being afflicted by the computer virus in the summer, which led to a full reload of my laptop, my rather obsessive system of backups means that I still have copies of my previous Chairmen's messages back to January 2001 when I took up post. In that first newsletter I pondered on what skills and training one needed to be the Chairman of a national organisation such as NACT.

NACT NEWSLETTER - July 2003, Volume 8 No. 3

Masses of education-related news in the last few weeks: the health secretary resigns, modernising medical careers is not going smoothly, deaneries may join the NHS University and appraisal and assessment is accelerating, but badly need reliable tools to support the processes. Where have NACT been during all this? Well, you will be pleased to hear that your association has been fairly close to the action. In all but the first!

Newsletter Associated Power Point Presentations. (requires Microsoft Power Point)

Nairn Presentation 9th May 2003

Other Power Point presentations used at the 9th May meeting.

NACT NEWSLETTER - April 2003, Volume 8 No. 2

What is the relevance of NACT to the different Deaneries, or indeed the different countries, in which Clinical Tutors live and work? This was therecent of challenges issued to me on one of my intermittent visits to see Clinical Tutors in the UK. The question is a good one. What is my answer?

NACT NEWSLETTER - January 2003, Volume 8 No. 1

However much Clinical Tutors may get involved with other matters, there is no escaping the fact that NACT�s main business is postgraduate medical education (PGME). The generic job description agreed with COPMeD makes this clear, and is at www.copmed.org.uk/Publications/ GreenGuide/Annex_8.html).

NACT NEWSLETTER - July 2002, Volume 7 No. 3

Recent news, accounts of our successful winter meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine, notices of forthcoming meetings, downloads of our training package or the synopsis of NACT Council Meetings, there should be something for every active Postgraduate Clinical Tutor.

NACT NEWSLETTER - April 2002, Volume 7 No. 2

Happy Easter - or thereabouts. What is new? Well, NACT helped to run the successful meeting �Education and Shift Working � an Oxymoron?� jointly with ASME and BAMM. I was pleased to see so many of you there. An account from the incisive, and swift, open of Richard Smith, now Acting Treasurer of the Association, follows. This is a subject that will occupy much PGCT time in the next few years.

NACT NEWSLETTER - January 2002, Volume 7 No. 1

I hope the sun is blazing upon you in some quiet backwater as you read this. If so, you are probably not in the UK, judging by the weather in the first part of the summer!
I was pleased to see so many of you at the 5 th Joint Conference in Bournemouth on July 10 th � 12 th . Those of you who did not manage to get there missed an important event. However, all is not lost! Highlights are available in this newsletter.

NACT NEWSLETTER - October 2001, Volume 6 No. 4

I hope you have all returned refreshed from your summer break. If my analysis is right, you will need to be! This letter gives some recent news from the postgraduate medical education arena.

NACT NEWSLETTER - July 2001, Volume 6 No. 3

The third issue of Clinical Tutor for 2001? Halfway through the year already? Doesn't time pass quickly when one is having fun? Well, there is plenty more fun to come.

Last modified: 09 February 2007