Academic Foundation Posts at Royal Cornwall Hospital
These exciting posts will provide teaching and educational experience during foundation training, with an opportunity to study for a Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Education. There are two Foundation Priority Programme (FPP) foundation posts in medical education based at Royal Cornwall Hospital (RCHT).
The FPP role in Foundation Year 2 involves working as part of a highly experienced simulation team at the hospital, designing and delivering teaching sessions both in clinical areas and our Simulation Suite. The post will enable you to integrate your clinical training with educational experience in postgraduate and multidisciplinary education, with opportunities to develop new teaching programmes.
Foundation Year 1
Clinical
The FY1 year is designed to fulfil the basic GMC requirements for full registration. The academic FY1 year is the same as for all other foundation trainees: 3 x 4 month clinical placements. Post 1 is in Surgery, Critical Care Medicine and Endocrinology. Post 2 is in Surgery, Emergency Medicine and Care of the Elderly. In both of these posts you will participate in the standard ward based duties, and relevant on calls, of all 81 FY1 doctors based at the Royal Cornwall Hospital. The rotations are designed to give a broad experience in medicine, building confidence and experience in managing a broad range of emergency, acute and chronic presentations.
As part of your FY1 training we provide weekly FY1 teaching focussing on acute care, and during the year you will attend a 6 week programme of generic skills teaching supporting professional development, including clinical skills and simulation.
All FY1 doctors are required to complete an electronic portfolio including core procedures, case based discussions, evidence of teaching experience and a quality improvement project.
Academic
There is no formal academic time during the FY1 year. However, there is availability for 5 taster days in any specialty which you can organise through postgraduate centre.
It is worth contacting the Truro FPP FY2 trainees early in the year with any questions and general advice about the programme. The RCHT Foundation Programme co-ordinator (Matt Metherell) will be able to help with this.
To prepare for the academic component in your FY2 year, you will need to apply for the Postgraduate certificate (PG Cert) in Medical education at Plymouth University. If you already hold a PG in Medical Education, you can change this to a PG Cert in Leadership & Management. You will be sent an email about this in April/May – you can email suzanne.maddock2@nhs.net if you have not heard about this. She will also be able to provide you with a letter confirming that NHS England will be fully funding the course.
It is necessary, for the PGCert in FY2, to be able to reference undergraduate teaching experience. Therefore it is advisable to deliver some undergraduate teaching during the FY1 year, and collect feedback. This can also be used for your FY1 portfolio.
In April/May you will need to choose your clinical placements for the FY2 year (6 months each). Your educational supervisor will then contact the deanery to have your choices approved, in order to ensure your overall foundation training provides a broad range of clinical experiences.
Foundation Year 2
You will need to be on track and be given an outcome 1 at ARCP for F1 to be offered the chance to continue with the Academic component in F2. Your time this year is clinical (60%) and academic (40%).
Clinical
The clinical component of the FY2 year is comprised of two 6-month placements, which you will finalise during the FY1 year. One of the 6-month posts will be in either ED, AMU or Critical Care. For the second 6-month post, each post-holder will be offered a choice of clinical specialty, with the final decision dependant on a combination of doctor preference, availability, F1 experience, the requirement to provide a broad training programme and the Foundation Programme Director’s view of any individual educational needs. This is to enable you to become embedded in a clinical team and allow you to complete your FY2 clinical requirements.
Academic
Your academic time is 40% of the year and is spread throughout FY2. One day a week is spent working with the simulation team in the Postgraduate Centre at Royal Cornwall Hospital, and each week there is an additional day – often spent in Plymouth as part of the PGCert course.
Whilst based in the Postgraduate Centre you will join an education team that includes Simulation Fellows who have just completed Foundation training and an experienced simulation team, many with backgrounds in anaesthesia. You will have the opportunity to develop your own teaching scenarios in simulation, train in debriefing and deliver simulation in both the simulation suite and clinical environments. The timetable below is a guide for the simulation timetable and can be used to inform your choice of regular academic day. This should be agreed with Gareth Evans, Simulation Manager and your rota co-ordinator.
| Wednesday | ED teaching – in ED |
| Thursday | Recovery – based in theatre areas, three times a month FY1 Simulation |
An important component of the simulation time is Quality Improvement work to support further development of services.
Your educational supervisor will be the same person for the 2 years. They will supervise your F1 year as for all F1 doctors. In year 1 they will be able to help with choosing your rotation and will offer advice on educational projects and contacts.
Other useful contacts include:
Gareth Evans: Simulation Lead, Royal Cornwall Hospital
Kathy Woolson: Simulation Consultant lead, Royal Cornwall Hospital
Matthew Metherell: Foundation Programme Administrator, Royal Cornwall Hospital matthew.metherell@nhs.net
Trudy Eddy: Trainee Support Manager, Royal Cornwall Hospital trudy.eddy@nhs.net
Suzanne Maddock: Peninsula Education Foundation Programme Manager, Plymouth suzanne.maddock2@nhs.net
Nick Cooper: Deanery Lead for Academic Foundation Programme in Medical Education He is a GP and Educationalist based in Torbay Nick.cooper@nhs.net