We acknowledge the support of the Royal
College of Surgeons of Edinburgh for supplying this article.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh has
a history stretching back five centuries to the incorporation of
the Barber Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1505. Throughout its long
history, the primary aim of the College has remained the same; the
promotion of surgical excellence on the basis of education,
training, clinical practice, assessment and lifelong learning.
Edinburgh has always been considered one of
the primary centres for medical education in the world and such
famous medics as Lord Joseph Lister, Sir James Young Simpson and
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have all been associated with the city and
indeed with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Today, the
College’s Fellows and Members, through their professional skills
and dedication, continue to make major contributions to patient
care throughout the world and their achievements are a source of
great pride to the College.
Although Edinburgh based, less than 10% of the
College’s Fellows and Members are in Scotland. The College
has a national and international reputation and flavour, with
Fellows and Members throughout the rest of the UK and in almost 100
countries around the globe. The College hosts surgical examinations
and courses in a number of UK (Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool,
Cambridge and Bristol as well as Edinburgh) and international
locations.
Students, foundation doctors and
RCSEd
Despite the long and illustrious history of
the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and its reputation for
excellence, the College prides itself on its ability to adapt to
change and its friendly approach. We encourage all medical
students with an interest in surgery to consider joining our
students’ network in order to link in with the College, receive
College communications and publications, discounts on courses and
access to student elective grants. For more information on becoming
a
Student Affiliate Member please visit the website.
This affiliation can continue into a doctor’s
foundation years, and we will soon be extending the programme to
include specialist trainee surgeons who have not yet sat their MRCS
examination.
The College will soon be launching a new
website with more information for students interested in a surgical
career, as well as developing a presence of social networking sites
like facebook, twitter and linkedIn.
Education, training and
electives
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
holds regular
courses not only for specialists and surgical trainees, but for
medical students interested in a surgical career. These include the
range of Future Surgeons courses (Key Skills, Critical Care and
Principles of Anatomy), and day-long information seminars for
aspiring surgeons at Undergraduate and Foundation level. More
information can be found on the College website.
Also available to broaden the educational
experiences of medical students are a range of financial grants and
awards through the College. RCSEd offers a number of bursaries
yearly to undergraduate students of medicine to enable them to work
for elective or vacation periods in universities, medical schools,
NHS laboratories or research institutes in the United Kingdom, and
recently announced a new scheme of
travel bursaries in association with Ethicon for medical
students wanting to travel to an approved surgical elective
overseas.
RSAs and College support
The College is committed to supporting future
surgeons, and has recently expanded its network of Regional
Surgical Advisors (RSAs). These representatives of the College are
surgeons working in hospitals around the UK and are good resources
for any medical students or trainee with questions about the
pathways to a surgical career. They can provide access to a wealth
of information and advice, and act as a local point of contact with
the College.
Making a career choice can be difficult for
trainee surgeons and a reduction in exposure to different surgical
specialties for younger doctors can make it difficult to know what
to expect in a given area. The College has a range of articles
available online which provide a snapshot of life in different
surgical specialties at trainee and consultant level. The
careers section
also features articles on alternative career paths, including
less-than-full-time training.
To assist surgical trainees and Fellows and
Members of the College in recording their experience, the College
has worked with its sister Colleges to develop a pan-surgical
electronic logbook. The logbook has been developed in close
co-operation with the Specialty Associations to provide a whole of
life service to surgeons of whatever specialty. At present, over
11,000 surgeons are using the e-logbook.
Examinations
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is
one of the four surgical colleges involved with the development and
implementation of the intercollegiate MRCS examination which
surgical trainees must now sit during the general part of their
specialist training. The MRCS Part A examination is held by the
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh at locations throughout the
UK. The MRCS Part B Examination is held three times a year at the
College in central Edinburgh. Upon passing this examination,
the candidate may then apply to become a Member of the College and
progress to higher specialist training in surgery.
The College has developed an online learning
program in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh to guide
and support the trainee during the early stages of their career,
called the Edinburgh Surgical Sciences Qualification (ESSQ). It
enables trainees to gain educational credits from the University of
Edinburgh which are validated by the Royal College of Surgeons
of Edinburgh, and provides a strong grounding in basic sciences as
applied to surgery, taking the student via a modular route to the
Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons or MRCS. The flexible
nature of online learning is attractive to busy trainees looking to
develop further their knowledge base and its application in their
clinical training. Further details can be found on the
ESSQ website