We spent a productive few days attending the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland international surgical congress in Telford between the 7th and 9th of May. Many delegates visited our stand to discuss the benefits of College membership, the courses and exams we run and ask us about our new International Postgraduate Deanery.
Among those representing the College at the congress were our Vice-President, Professor Rowan Parks. Rowan chaired the Sir Robert Shields Lecture on 8 May and presented the Robert Shields Medal to Mr Tim Graham.
Tim, a College Council Member is a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Senior Lecturer in Clinical Surgery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and delivered a lecture entitled ‘Cardiothoracic trauma for the General Surgeon on the spot’, described by Professor Parks as 'absolutely outstanding'. We hope to provide a synopsis of Tim's lecture in the coming weeks on our website.
We also took the opportunity to raise awareness among attendees of the role of the College, the benefits of membership and the services and support we offer to our growing global network of medical professionals. In particular, we talked to delegates about our newest Deanery, the International Postgraduate Deanery (IPD).
The IPD offers two main routes for international surgeons to train in the UK for a period of 12-24 months with a key focus on providing high quality training and exchange of global surgical knowledge.