Royal College of Surgeons of England
We acknowledge the support of the Royal Collge of
Surgeons of England for supplying this article:
The Royal College of Surgeons of England
enables surgeons to achieve and maintain the highest standards of
surgical practice and patient care and playing a key role in the
training and development of surgeons throughout their careers. It
sets examinations, supervises training, runs educational courses,
provides grants and fellowships, promotes and supports surgical
research, as well as giving surgeons support and advice.
The College also seeks to provides strategic leadership by
engaging at the highest level with Government, the Department of
Health, Strategic Health Authorities, Trusts and regulatory and
professional bodies to influence national healthcare policy and
works to produce a regular output of major policy documents that
help shape health services at national and local level
Education
The College has a wide programme of
educational surgical activities, with hundreds of courses delivered
both regionally and at the College. Courses are also run on aspects
of professional development such legal issues, patient safety and
communication skills.
The range of College educational courses covers
all the surgical specialities and subspecialties and all the levels
of surgical experience. Intensive workshops span the basics, for
example courses in suturing for early stage trainees, to advanced
master classes in technical skills for senior consultants. These
formal training courses are designed to complement clinical
experience gained on hospital wards and in operating theatres. The
benefits of learning from surgical experts, the breadth of courses
and the high tutor to trainee ratio and anatomical instruction give
the College unmatched expertise in surgical education.
The College has recently opened the new
state-of-the-art training facility, the ‘Eagle Project’, allowing
provision of outstanding opportunities for researching, developing
and delivering educational courses of the highest international
standards. This has allowed the College to develop world class
programmes in clinical skills and teaching. The new facility
includes a seminar suite and comprehensive AV/video links, as well
as other technological innovations such as dissecting microscopes,
the use of robotics and computer-aided navigation. The ‘Eagle
Project’ has allowed the College to produce detailed assessment of
surgeons’ clinical and team-working performance and helps drive
higher standards of patient care.
The College library also provides access to a
learning resource of over 10,000 academic journals, including Ovid
Online, ScienceDirect, Cambridge journals, Medline and EMBASE
through the College website.
More details on the College educational courses
and the Eagle project can be found at: http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/education
Exams
The College is responsible for overseeing 20
different examinations each year. Examinations are held both at the
College and at centres and hospitals across the UK.
The Membership Examination of the Surgical
Royal Colleges of Great Britain (MRCS) is designed for candidates
who are completing the general part of their specialty training,
and must be achieved if trainees are to progress into one of the
nine surgical specialities.
The purpose of the MRCS is to determine that
trainees have acquired the knowledge, skills and attributes
required for the completion of core training in surgery and, should
they wish to, determine their ability to progress to higher
specialist training in surgery.
Other examinations involving the College
include the Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Programme (ISCP).
This has been created by all four Royal Surgical Colleges (in
conjunction with Joint Committee on Surgical Training, an advisory
body to the four surgical Royal Colleges) and all nine surgical
specialist associations. It has been designed to underpin surgical
training to meet the needs of trainees and trainers across the
surgical specialities. Each surgical specialty has the same
syllabus framework, detailing the scope of the practice, key topics
and the training methods.
More information on College examinations can be
found at: http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/exams
Careers advice
The Opportunities in Surgery Committee (OiS) is
in charge of the College support of surgeons at all stages of their
careers, from prospective medical students to Consultants,
concerning issues from choosing a specialty to dealing with
retirement. The committee is openly recruited from RCS members and
fellows from across the UK with a variety of interests and career
pathways.
OiS runs events for school pupils, medical
students and foundation trainees across the country, providing
lectures, careers fairs and specialist advice. OiS also has a
number of subcommittees. The Women
in Surgery (WinS) committee looks after issues relating to
women and works to address issues and support women wanting to
enter and already working in surgery. The
Medical Student Liaison Committee deals with issues that
concern medical students and consists of student representatives
from the UK Medical Schools Surgical Society.
More information about how the College supports
surgeons’ careers can be found at:
http://surgicalcareers.rcseng.ac.uk/.
and http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/support
Awards and grants
In the last fifteen years the College, through
the Research Fellowships Scheme, has committed more than £20
million to support over 475 individual trainee surgeons working in
university departments and hospitals throughout the country.
There are several awards and scholarships
available to medical students through the College. The MacLoghlin
and Morris scholarship is awarded to medical students who are
experiencing financial difficulties in pursuit of their studies,
while the Preiskel Elective Prize in surgery offers £500 for
medical students who undertake surgical electives in the developing
world.
For surgeons who are more advanced in their
career, there are grants to help fund research for newly appointed
consultants, research fellowships, lectureships and education
course scholarships.
More information about how to apply for
College awards and grants can be found at: http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/surgical_awards_and_grants