We offer unique training initiatives and opportunities and constantly strive to improve and innovate.  Some of those initiatives are detailed here.

Trainee Committee

We have set up a Trainees Committee to help guide and develop our training program.

The committee is made up of trainees from ST1 to ST8 and provides feedback and input to the school executive. 
All members of the Committee were competitively appointed following a selection process based on application forms. As committee members move on or stand down from post, further applications are invited giving you the chance to have a direct input into your training. 

The committee has been key to the successful implementation of many of the schools most innovative projects: – topic of the month, simulation, Signpost.

Topic of the Month

As well as listening to feedback from its trainees it has allowed trainees to design their own training program. Training is now themed around a topic of the month which culminates in a lecture based study day at the Royal Society of Medicine.

This concept has been developed to allow local learning to support the regional teaching programme (and vice versa).  The teaching programme runs over 24 months (with two ‘holiday’ months in August of each year).  Each month has been allocated a theme derived from the curriculum mapping work.  This includes both clinical subjects and more generic skills.  These will form the focus for the Regional Study Days that are to be held monthly at the Royal Society of Medicine. 

Simulation  

The London School of Paediatrics aims to ensure that its trainees achieve the competencies outlined in the RCPCH curriculum through a variety of teaching methods.  A great deal of the training can be achieved through day to day experience in the workplace. This is then augmented by other teaching methods to address areas of learning that cannot be met in the workplace. One of these will be the simulation programme.
 
The simulation programme for paediatrics aims to develop:

• technical skills that occur with insufficient frequency in the workplace
• non-technical skills including teamwork skills
• communication in a MDT
• communication with families and young people

The programme will consist of 3 training streams: full immersion (high fidelity); communication scenarios; and part task (practical skills) training. It has been devised with extensive input from paediatricians, resuscitation officers and nursing professionals throughout the region. The lead paediatrician for simulation work is Dr Mehrengise Cooper, Consultant PICU, St Mary’s Hospital.

Signpost Tool

Signpost has been developed has been developed  to provide an online map of training resources framed around the Paediatric training competencies.

The backbone of the website is the RCPCH Curriculum. Users can look through the curriculum to identify areas that are relevant to them. They can then click on these topics and be taken to links to resources (study days, courses, e-modules) to help attain these competencies. The website also hosts links to online lectures from the study days and to online forums. What makes this resource particularly exciting is that it both allows trainees and trainers to propose new content and gives them the opportunity to score or review what is already there.