The regional anaesthesia fellowship enables trainees to strengthen their interest in regional anaesthesia as well as giving them the valuable opportunity to undertake research, audit, teaching and service development.

Theatre-based learning

The fellow will develop expertise in upper limb, lower limb, trunk blocks and continuous perineural catheter techniques, US-assisted subarachnoid/extradural blocks, etc. We encourage cross-site practice to ensure a broad exposure to both planned and emergency regional anaesthesia caseload. Queens Medical Centre is a major trauma centre while City Hospital is a centre with a huge elective orthopaedic caseload. The NSEU shoulder/elbow unit is one of the largest in the country.

Teaching

Fellows get to develop teaching skills throughout the year in post. The main aim is to concentrate on clinical teaching, especially in theatre and block area. The fellow assists in the running/development of our local and national (RA-UK) courses, as well as running block clubs, anatomy and exam tutorials.

Research

We have strong links with the Academic Anaesthesia Department (University of Nottingham). This has resulted in multiple publications for all of the fellows who have proceeded through the programme. We encourage all of our fellows to present posters/papers at the RA-UK, ESRA and AAGBI meetings.

Management/Service Development

The fellow is viewed as an important resource in assisting with our service development programme, though audit, protocol/practice review, etc. Previous fellows have all gained valuable management experience throughout their year with us. As we view audit as an essential part of modern anaesthesia practice, the fellow leads the regular review of our regional service to patients.

Supervision

Program supervisors: Dr Nigel Bedforth and Dr James French

Job Plan

Weekly Hours: Approx. 48 per week

On-call: Resident on-call for anaesthesia joining the pool of senior SpRs, covering theatres, trauma calls - major trauma patients in ED department, the obstetric anaesthetist on call, and providing support to the ITU trainee (approx1in7).