SAS Week 2023
SAS Week is a week-long celebration of Staff Grade, Associate Specialist and Specialty (SAS) doctors which runs from 9-13 October. More than 1 in 5 of the non-trainee anaesthetic workforce are SAS doctors who play an essential role in the provision of anaesthetic services to patients.
SAS doctors are also an integral part of the College. We benefit from the representation of SAS doctors on Council – our elected SAS members are Dr Sunil Kumar and Dr Ashwini Keshkamat. We also have a dedicated SAS Committee that works across the College and with Council to promote all matters relating to doctors working in SAS roles, including education, training, professional development and wellbeing.
“We are committed to supporting our SAS members all year round, but this week provides an opportunity to take the time to say thank you, and to shine a spotlight on this community, whose work is essential to the success of our specialty.”
Dr Fiona Donald, President
Share your SAS experience
At the College, we want to raise the profile of SAS doctors and this rewarding career path chosen by many for a variety of reasons. Last year, Dr Sunil Kumar initiated a campaign to enable our SAS members to share their stories with us, which shone a spotlight on members’ vast range of skills and expertise.
This SAS Week we would like to celebrate more of our SAS members. If you would like to write about your career, interests and achievements so that we can share them with a wider audience, please contact Susan Soper on ssoper@rcoa.ac.uk.
We would be pleased to hear about any aspect of your life and work. For example, what roles do you undertake either at work or in your personal life that contribute to your wellbeing and job satisfaction? What achievements are you most proud of? Have you become a specialist and what was your experience of that pathway?
SAS Week activities and resources
To mark the start of SAS week, Dr Kumar has written for our blog about his role on Council and his pathway to becoming an Associate Specialist at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.
Join us for our monthly online Let’s Talk event for members on 11 October. This month we will focus on our SAS members, although everyone is welcome to attend as usual. We will be joined by Dr Ashwini Keshkamat, Dr Sunil Kumar, Dr Kirstin May, Dr Roger Sharpe, Dr Sarah Thornton and our President Dr Fiona Donald. Let’s Talk conversations are led by our members so come along and raise whatever is on your mind.
Look out for the forthcoming SAS week episode of our Anaesthesia on Air podcast, featuring Dr Ashwini Keshkamat in conversation with Dr Roger Sharpe and Dr Sarah Thornton about SAS doctors as educators. And if you missed last year’s SAS Week podcasts, you can catch up with episodes on SAS doctors from a leader’s perspective and the SAS advocate role.