Educational supervision:

Dr Nigel Bedforth is truly excellent.

Good support, regular teaching sessions, assistance with identifying appropriate lists and ensuring an appropriate level of teaching and supervision, identifying key objectives and assisting with planning to achieve them; for eg., Suggested projects and the process to see through to completion including high-value presentation.

Clinical supervision:

Not structured per-se but by those I would consider experts in regional anaesthesia within our department. They worked with me to maximise my training opportunities; for eg., blocks in multiple lists running simultaneously.

There was a significant service element early on (solo lists in Trauma; probably due to school holidays) but I approached it as a learning opportunity, improving my block skills as well as getting better at running a traumatic trauma list! Having said this, excellent utilisation of training lists by trainers (see above) later meant I did not feel like I had lost out.

All in, I performed a few hundred blocks and towards the end of the fellowship was regularly teaching junior trainees and supporting consultant colleagues performing almost any block they needed assistance with.

On-call:

I was on the second on-call rota at QMC. For those that have not worked at QMC, it is the busiest major trauma centre in the country, has an ED which gets 600 ish attendees per day, is home to major colorectal, spines and HPB surgery, has a 50 ish bedded critical unit and can be a bit busy at times.

Research and QI:

Between two fellows, over the course of the year we managed four international presentations, one Trust level QI project and one patient safety project.

I could have possibly achieved more during the year but had significant rollover from my fellowship in academic anaesthesia which I had just completed.

Teaching opportunities:

I already had a strong teaching interest (novice teaching, sim, exam courses, APLS instructyor, invited to instruct on ALS and ETC) but there was plenty of opportunity to teach, for eg., novice teaching, block club for trainees and teaching ED staff.

NUH Anaesthesia:

We are a big, friendly department with a wide variety of personalities who are welcoming and plenty of national experts. We also are home to the President of the RCoA and the Association of Anaesthetists.

Nottingham:

Is a big student town, with some excellent bars and restaurants. Property is reasonable, pints are cheap (you can actually buy a round with a tenner!), there is plenty of cycling, the National Watersports Centre, indoor climbing amongst many other things. We have good transport links and one could probably cycle to work from wherever they live within Nottingham.

To summarise:

Great department, great fellowship, good town, some pretty friendly people; You will absolutely love it here!