Becoming a CT1 - a guide to your first 6 months

All rotations start on the first Wednesday of the month.

Read this guide on a regular basis. It is aimed to assist you and your supervisor.

You will receive regular emails from me, your training programme Director (Dr Elaine Allsop).

I will sometimes copy emails to other people. For example:

Dr Sarah Thornton - Head of School

Dr Simon Mercer - Associate Head of School (in Mersey section of HEENW)

Dr Lee Poole - Deputy Regional Advisor (College Representative for your training)

During the first three months you will be directly supervised.

This means you will be allocated to a consultant or senior trainee for every list you are allocated to.
This does not mean you should be passive with respect to your training.
As the weeks go by, you will be expected to make clinical decisions and complete workplace assessments.
This will help you become more independent.
By the end of three months and after you have obtained satisfactory assessments for your initial assessment of competency, you will be placed on the on call rota at night.

Day’s 1-3

Attend induction day/s. The content of your induction varies in each Trust. You may have been sent a Generic work Schedule (see personalised work schedule)
The first few weeks will be confusing and tiring. It is not surprising as you are in new speciality.
As soon as possible after starting, you should have obtained an eportfolio username and password by the time you start your training in Anaesthesia.
If you have no access, you will need to contact the RCoA and register with them. This gives you automatic access.
Make sure you add your hospital to your details and add your supervisor. This will mean that your college tutor and educational supervisor also have access to your eportfolio.
Your College Tutor and Dr Elaine Allsop (TPD for core trainees) can offer support with the eportfolio.
In addition, this year, there will be trainee buddies in each Hospital who will be able to help you.
REGISTER with ‘e’ learning anaesthesia. This gives you access to reading material relevant to your stage in training - http://www.rcoa.ac.uk/e-la
START using the Lifelong Learning platform Logbook. The logbook takes a little getting used to. If in trouble, discuss with more senior trainee or with your ES
Download CCT in anaesthesia - a manual for trainees and trainers - on the RCoA website.
2010 curriculum for CT1 trainees (Annex B; Basic level training August 2010). It gives you a lot of information for clinical training, together with the knowledge required to support this. Pages 1-27 are relevant to the first few months of training - HERE
Consider joining the Association of Anaesthetists. Benefits include a journal, Insurance for inter hospital patient transfers and access to ‘learn AAGBI' - HERE

Within 2 weeks of starting

Identify your Educational supervisor (ES) and make an appointment. You may find that your supervisor will find you anyway. You may also be allocated to your supervisor on a theatre list at regular intervals. NOTE; It is likely that your Educational supervisor will be on holiday at some point in August.
EPORTFOLIO. When you meet your supervisor, make sure you Log onto your eportfolio. Use your eportfolio as evidence that a meeting with your supervisor has taken place. This is how we would like you to log this activity PLEASE add a PDP ENTITLED ‘PDP CT1.’ Then add SMART objectives. (Agreed by your Educational supervisor.)PLEASE add an Activity entitled ‘supervisory meeting’ when you meet your supervisor. You may be asked to complete a ‘personalised work schedule’. Your PD and supervisory meeting equates to agreeing a personalised work schedule*.Look at he generic work schedule with your supervisor and agree how to personalise it to your training.
TEACHING. DO attend the BASICs course. This takes place on the second Thursday of each month. It is regional teaching for you and it may be the only classroom teaching you will have. I will attend on some occasions.
Please DO attend the BASIC LARYNGOSCOPY course (at Warrington Hospital) in August 2017

After 6 weeks

Make sure you are using your e portfolio prospectively. You will need your eportfolio to generate work place based assessments (WPBAs)
Make sure you complete (WPBAs) for your ‘Initial Assessment of Competency'. You should receive information about this from your college tutor or educational supervisor.
You will need to complete 6 DOPS, 5 CEX and 8 CBDs, together with involvement in a suitable number of anaesthetics. Use different assessors - the majority of assessors should be Consultants but there are some SAS grades and trainees who can also assess you.
OTHER regional COURSES which you will have access to EASE is a simulation based crisis management course for emergencies in Anaesthesia - this is held in the Aintree SIM Centre Transfer course - also held in the Aintree SIM centre. NB - dates to be confirmed but take place approximately three times over the CT1 training year

From about 3 months

Make an appointment to see your Educational supervisor.
Aim to complete your ‘Initial Assessment of Competency’ at around 3 months. Once you have obtained this, you can be ‘on call'. You should not be placed on the on call rota before you have completed your initial assessment of competency.
You could discuss an audit or quality improvement project with your ES/CT or audit lead. Sometimes it is difficult to start an Audit in the first year of training - you are in a new speciality and it is likely you will be thinking of working towards your Primary FRCA MCQ/SBA. Make your audit/QI simple. Make sure you add evidence of this to your eportfolio.If you attend audit meetings in your anaesthetic department, add this this to your eportfolio as evidence of audit activity.
By the end of six months you should have completed ‘The Introduction to anaesthetic practice’.This involves completing WPBA’s (DOPS, ACEX, CBD).Suggestions for WPBAs are in the curriculum and also in an assessment guidance handbook. Look at the Units of Training for “The Introduction to Anaesthetic Practice” – there are 8 Units covering over 100 learning points. Start organizing your theatre training to achieve these targets.

At about 6 months