Message from the Secretary
By the end of 1999, more than thirty-five cardiothoracic trainees are
expected to have their Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training.
There is an understandable anxiety amongst this group about the
availability of consultant posts.
There is considerable concern about the failure of a number of hospitals
to recruit full-time thoracic surgeons. At present it is estimated that
there are eleven such posts available in the UK, many of them have not
even gone to advertisement because of the recognised absence of suitable
candidates. At the Annual Business Meeting in March, the Executive was
charged with looking into this problem and a Thoracic Surgical Working
Party has already been set up and it is expected that its deliberations
will be brought to the membership before the year's end.
Standing back from these two dilemmas, there seems to be a clear cut
and simple solution to both problems - some of the cardiothoracic
traineesshould declare their interest in thoracic surgery.
If they feel they are less well trained in thoracic surgery than
cardiac, as the majority are because of the service demands of the
training programmes, there is ample good will to arrange to improve on
that experience by arranging for them to spend time in busy thoracic
units, if necessary away from their base rotation.
This would be an ad hoc answer to a problem that requires a long-term
solution but any interested senior higher surgical trainees should
contact their programme directors, the Society's Postgraduate Dean
or any of the officers of the Society who would be only too happy to
discuss individual's aspirations.
Another matter of increasing concern that has come to the fore
since the Annual Business Meeting is the rapidly changing workload of
consultants. This is being discussed in many fora but the Executive
has
taken the view that the Society must make recommendations on an
appropriate workload for cardiothoracic surgeons and a working party
chaired by the Vice-President, Jim Monro,
has been established. Anyone wishing to make their views known should contact Mr. Monro at Southampton General Hospital directly.
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