MEDICAL WOMEN’S FEDERATION
Tavistock House North, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HX
Tel: 020 7387 7765 email: admin.mwf@btconnect.com
www.medicalwomensfederation.org.uk
@medicalwomenuk
www.facebook.com/MedWomen
Name
Lucy Simmonds
Email
Project title
Anterior Skull Base Surgery
Location of your Elective
Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield
Contact details for your elective (eg. Website
address or email address of your project coordinator)
What did you achieve?
University of Sheffield Medical School https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/medicine/electives
Would you recommend this location / project to
others?
Yes, if you are prepared to long hours and be very organised about
making the most of the opportunities available. Sheffield also offer
electives in other specialities.
Further comments (eg. Travel advice, tips for
organising an elective similar to this etc.)
The elective was very easy to organise via the University’s website,
although there were a few minor administrative problems on the
first day, so it is worth bringing copies of occupation health
records, university ID etc. What was less straightforward was
attempting to get funding for it, and an elective in the UK is not
necessarily a cheaper option unless you are staying close to home.
The MWF was one of the few organisations that had bursaries
available for students not travelling abroad.
Yes without email address
Would you be happy for you feedback form to
be available on our website?
Further comments (eg. A review of your trip)
max. 500 words.
I spent 5 weeks at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital and 2 weeks at
the Sheffield Children’s Hospital, mainly doing neurosurgery, but
also some anterior skull base surgery and ENT.
Most days started at 7am with a ward round and a radiology
meeting. Following this, I made sure I saw any patients who had
come in for surgery that day and familiarised myself with their
history etc. I was able to organise my time myself which allowed
me to see a wide variety of operations including pituitary tumours,
skull base, vascular, functional, paediatric and spinal surgery.
Although neurosurgical patients are sometimes in hospital for
quite a considerable amount of time post-op, I found it was a good
chance to get to know them very well and I enjoyed following
them up every day, in particular when they returned from ITU to
the ward and eventually were discharged. The converse was also
true and there were some difficult conversations between doctors
and patients and their families when the prognosis was not good,
or operations had not gone as well as hoped for.
The surgeons were very generous with their time and often let me
scrub and assist in theatre. The registrars in particular did a lot of
teaching and let me shadow them whilst they were on-call which
MEDICAL WOMEN’S FEDERATION
Tavistock House North, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HX
Tel: 020 7387 7765 email: admin.mwf@btconnect.com
www.medicalwomensfederation.org.uk
@medicalwomenuk
www.facebook.com/MedWomen
allowed me to learn about managing neurosurgical emergencies
and also to practice examining patients and coming up with a
diagnosis. There was also the opportunity to sit in on both adult
and paediatric clinics and to observe lumbar punctures on the daycase unit. I am hoping to write up a case report based on a patient
I saw and the consultants were very keen to help with any projects
I wanted to do.
The elective was in fact supervised by an ENT surgeon which was a
useful opportunity to refresh my knowledge of this speciality
before starting as an FY1, and also see how the ENT and
neurosurgeons worked together on the pituitary cases.