We are a group of anaesthetic trainees based in the UK who are interested in medical education and supporting the most junior members of our flock...the novice anaesthetist.
Although often the largest department in any given hospital, anaesthesia is relatively under-exposed to the medical student and junior doctor. The upshot of this is a steep learning curve as you start in an unfamiliar working environment.
Starting out in anaesthesia can be daunting. This site aims to support our trainees as they progress through the first few months in anaesthesia and work towards their initial assessment of competencies (IAC) before being entrusted to manage patients solo.
The stakes are high in this speciality because the treatments we provide necessarily alter patient physiology. Sedatives are administered, paralysis induced, GCS goes from 15 to 3 in seconds. Apnoea ensues. We've just compromised A and B (also D) of our A-E. Knowing how to do this and recover the patient safely is the cornerstone of anaesthetic practice.
Because of this, more so than any other hospital speciality, you are trained as an apprentice.
During your novice (IAC) period you will be constantly supervised by senior colleagues. The experience of 1-1 training with someone who is thoroughly and willingly invested in your development means anaesthesia is consistently regarded as one of the best training schemes in UK hospital medicine. The training and exams have a reputation for producing versatile, skilled and invaluable doctors.
But before we can run, we have to walk. The IAC/novice period tries to provide a structured introduction to anaesthetic practice and has a dyed-in-the-wool set of workplace based assessments (WPBAs) to complete to achieve this milestone.
That’s where we come in…
The videos and resources we will be posting on this site and our social media are designed to give you background, context and discussion points as you complete these WPBA with your mentors. Pre-reading (Pre-viewing) if you like.
The videos are available in our Video section, embedded from our YouTube and Vimeo channels. We have started a twitter account @GasNovice which we will use to notify of any new resources we put out and signpost material from the internet that we think will be useful during core training. There is a links page on this site with resources we've found useful and we will try to keep it up to date and relevant
We want this site to develop and provide a really useful resource for us all.
If you have any suggestions or comments please get in touch
Email: noviceanaesthesia@gmail.com
Tweet @GasNovice
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