Warwick Medical School
Clinical Academic Training Committee Meeting
Minutes of the meeting of the Clinical Academic Training Committee held on 8th
September 2011 at 6.00pm Room A-042 Medical School Building.
Present:
Matthew Costa (Chair), Paul O’Hare, Siobhan Quenby, Saverio Stranges,
John Burden, Hannah Smith
Apologies:
Dean Bruton, John Powell, Matthew Cooke, Damian Griffin, Neil Johnson,
Thomas Kimberly, Sudhesh Kumar, Liz Hughes, Kate Seers, Scott Weich,
Peter Winstanley, Neil Johnson, Rebecca Kearney, Dan Munday, Tom
Barber
In Attendance: Amy Grove
15/10-11
Introductions
Saverio Stranges will be taking over the role of Public Health representative from John
Powell as of October 2011.
Hannah Smith is an ACF in Trauma and Orthopaedics (medical education) and will be the
ACF representative for the CAT Committee.
Amy Grove is the ICAT Co-ordinator taking over the role of Ann Davis, effective 1 st July
2011.
16/10-11
Minutes
RESOLVED:
That the minutes of the meeting held on 2nd February 2011 (previously
circulated) can be approved.
That the meeting scheduled for the 23rd June 2011 was cancelled.
17/10-11
Action Points from Last Meeting
CONSIDERED:
(a)
Medical Students/Careers Fair
1
REPORTED: SQ and Prof Charles Hutchinson have been working to
identify medical students at WMS who are keen to pursue academic
careers. It is problematic to encourage medical students to follow the
‘non standard’ career path. More needs to be done to promote
academic career options.
REPORTED: PoH will be hosting a stall at the National BMA careers
fair 7/8th October 2011 in Birmingham. PoH requested HS attend to
give a short talk on her experience of the programme. ACTION PoH
email HS.
(c)
Update of 2011 NIHR ACF/CL Confirmed Allocation
REPORTED: A ‘Welcome Letter’ for new ACF/CLs was sent out to all
new trainees. ACTION: AG to send next years welcome letters with
supervisors contact details, so that trainees can make the initial
contact.
REPORTED: That information on the Wednesday seminars held at
UHCW is circulated to all ACFs and members of the CATC each
week.
2
18/10-11
Matters Arising
(a)
Update on 2010 NIHR ACF/CL Recruitment and other Trainees
That the majority of the posts had been filled. The Anaesthetics CL
could not be filled and the post had therefore been converted to a T&O
post.
Reproduction – there has been trouble recruiting to the Obstetrics and
Genecology posts. A national recruitment process will be put in place
for 2012, with the aim of ‘spreading’ specialities around the country.
The applicants will apply and be short listed nationally, but interviewed
locally. ACTION: SQ to update on national recruitment process at
next meeting.
(b)
Medical School Initiatives: Ways of Improving Interviews/Applications
Concerns had been raised regarding the medical students awareness
of the ICAT programme. SQ and CH had come up with several ideas
to improve early access and raising the profile of ICAT to potential
candidates.
The outcome of this was that WMS medical students are cautious to
pursue a career in academic medicine. There is a general lack of
understanding and misinformation about what can be achieved.
ACTION: To continue to raise the profile of the ICAT programme with
WMS medical students. ACTION: All to discuss at next meeting.
(c)
Annual Review of Competence Progression (ARCPs).
There is concern that there is a lack of academic representation on the
ARCP panel. There is no information on academic progression
provided to the panel.
PoH has developed a progress review form that will be issued to all
trainees. This will need to be discussed and signed by the academic
supervisor and sent back to the ARCF. ACTION: AG MC to discuss
the logistics of sending this out and ensuring it is completed and
returned.
(d)
Research Support Services (RSS) – John Burden
JB role in RSS is to support early career researchers
1- Develop funding applications and give feedback
2- Generate awareness for post degree students/staff of their
research funding options and careers
3
3- JB can meet with groups or on a one to one basis with staff to
provide an end to end service regarding research and funding
ACTION: AG to invite JB to a Wednesday research meeting at UHCW
to introduce RSS and what they can offer the trainees
ACTION: AG to email all 2011 trainees to introduce RSS and
encourage them to meet with JB at an early stage in the programme.
ACTION: AG to contact finance department (Debbie Greer/Maria
Evans) to obtain clarity on the finance process for grant applications.
Distribute to the committee.
19/10-11
Updates Reports
REPORTED:
(a)
Orthopaedics (MC)
Did not have any allocated posts for 2011. Did appoint a CL which
was appointed after it was not filled elsewhere. That Chris Smith had
a Wellcome grant and was currently on Fellowship at Exeter. T&O are
advertising two Senior Lecturer posts at UHCW.
(b)
Reproduction (SQ)
The 2011 CL post has not yet been filled – the deadline is March
2012. The current CL has been awarded a Health Foundation
Fellowship in Maternal Medicine Safety.
(c)
Public Health (SS)
That the two 2011 posts had been successfully appointed to.
Currently PH have six trainees, four ACFs and two CLs. Each has
their own supervisor and SS co-ordinates their actives.
(d)
Diabetes (Tom Barber)
TB has replaced Professor Sudesh Kumar in the Committee. That the
two CL posts had been filled. ACTION: AG to obtain latest update.
(e)
Psychiatry (SW)
Psychiatry currently has 2 Psychiatry ACFs, Dr Oana Mitrofan
(appointed August 2010) and Dr Angharad de Cates (appointed
August 2011). They were meant to have appointed a third ACF (in the
2010 round) but two appointees withdrew shortly after interview. They
were unable to identify a suitable candidate when in was advertised
for the third time, “assumption that this post has been lost”.
Dr Mitrofan submitted her PhD this year and is completing (minor)
post-viva corrections; she was also successful in passing her ARCP
and is now a CT2 trainee. Both ACFs are trainees at the Coventry
and Warwickshire Partnership trust. Dr de Cates has been awarded a
training number and so is officially an ST1 trainee.
4
Academic supervisor decisions within the Division have been made;
Dr Mitrofan’s supervisor is Dr Moli Paul and Dr de Cates will be
supervised by Dr Matthew Broome. Together they are formulating
plans for training and academic development. Dr de Cates is in the
process of applying to register for an MSc at WMS.
Psychiatry have not been allocated an ACF for 2012 but will be
expecting a further post for the 2013 round.
Comment from Prof Weiss
My main concern (which I would ask that the Committee consider) is
that there is still no formal, centralised WMS process for welcoming
ACFs or for making them feel part of the University or Medical School.
They are very much left to their own devices (and those of their
supervisors) in terms of induction, orientation, understanding their
bursaries, honorary contracts, finding out about Wednesday teaching
or outside events and (especially) office space. Both ACFs have been
made to feel very unwelcome, and both have had the most enormous
difficulty obtaining any desk space at all for them at WMS. I have
raised this point before, but there is no sign that matters are
improving.
Finally, as our first ACFs progress through the scheme (and I note
that Dr Mitrofan will soon have her PhD), we need to make provision
for Lecturer posts in Psychiatry.
(f)
Anaesthesia (FS)
FS has left the University.
speciality at Warwick.
Anaesthesia is no longer a clinical
ACF Dr Mudassar Aslam works in Birmingham Heartlands Hospital
with UoW being the assigned research institution. Dr Aslam remains
to work with Prof Feng Gao-Smith on the academic side as UoW does
not have an academic specialist in Anaesthesia.
(g)
Paediatrics (KM)
That Dr Karen Manias had transferred into the ACF post. ACTION:
AG to obtain latest update/copy in PoH
(h)
Emergency Medicine (MC/GP)
The Committee would like to invited Gavin Perkins to represent EM to
replace MC when he cannot attend. ACTION: AG to obtain latest
update if ED have appointed
(i)
Clinical Radiology (CH)
CR has replaced Anaesthesia. Prof Charles Hutchinson will represent
the speciality. ACTION: AG to obtain latest update.
5
(j)Palliative Medicine
Nadia Khan ACF in Palliative Medicine is working in Birmingham and
only coming to Warwick for supervisions. We are hoping to get her
project through ethics next month and she is working on preparing
some literature reviews. The way this is working is probably quite
different to the Warwick based ACFs.
17/10-11
Trainee Feedback
REPORTED:
Hannah Smith will be the representative trainee for the Committee. ACTION:
HS to report if the trainees are getting the support that they want. How can
the Committee assist?
20/10-11
AOB
National BMA Careers fair 7-8th October. ACTION: PoH to report at next
meeting.
Confirmed 2012 Speciality Spread is as below.
NIHR ACFs
Post Number
1 – formula
2 – formula
3 – formula
4 – competition
5 – competition
Specialty
Obstetrics & Gynaecology
Emergency Medicine
Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgery
Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgery
Clinical Radiology
NIHR CLs
Post Number
1 – formula
2 – competition
21/10-11
Specialty
Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgery
Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgery
Date of Next Meeting
REPORTED:
That the date of the next meeting of the Clinical Academic Training
Committee would be on Thursday 24th November 2011 at 5.30pm in Room
TBC Medical School Building.
SQ PoH SS have given their apologises.
6
7