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Anaesthetic room walls are often covered with various posters and warnings reminding staff about recent incidents or safety hazards. Signs prompt us where to find dantrolene or intralipid, or how to confirm tube placement. 

When the RCoA changed its branding in 2016, professional designers were called in and consulted on the changes. When creating clinical informatics however, it is often left to clinicians; but a complex series of decisions that combine aesthetics, psychology, and ergonomics are required to make presentation effective.

In this, the first of a series of articles, we will explore some of the issues relevant to presenting information, beginning with iconography.

Authors:

• Dr Natalie Constable, ST6 Anaesthetic Registrar, Department of Anaesthesia, UHBW Foundation Trust, Bristol
• Dr Fiona Oglesby, ST6 Anaesthetic Registrar, Department of Anaesthesia, UHBW, Bristol
• Dr George Bainbridge, Anaesthetic Clinical Fellow, Department of Anaesthesia, UHBW, Bristol
• Dr Helen Howes, Consultant Anaesthetist, Department of Anaesthesia, UHBW, Bristol
• Dr Rachel  McKendry, Consultant Anaesthetist, Department of Anaesthesia, UHBW, Bristol

The Bristol Royal Infirmary’s Difficult Airway Response Team (DART), developed in 2017, is a successful, innovative, cross-specialty response unit designed to expedite the arrival of clinical expertise and advanced equipment to the patient’s bedside in complex airway emergencies. Five years following DART’s inception, we intend to highlight the challenges intrinsic to maintaining the service and how we have attempted to overcome these. 

Welcome to the Winter 2024 issue of the Bulletin. I am always filled with renewed enthusiasm at the start of a new calendar year, in part as the festive season in South Asian cultures starts in late October with the celebration of Diwali and then… well… continues! 

This is not to take away from the fact that winter within the UK National Health Service (NHS) is extremely challenging; some may say that this year, especially, is akin to walking a tight rope.

Authors:

• Dr Olly Boney and Dr Cliff Shelton, PCPIE Group co-chairs
• Jenny Dorey and John Hitchman, PCPIE Group lay members

We go behind the scenes of the NIAA’s Patient, Carer and Public Involvement and Engagement Group (aka the ‘PCPIE' Group) to speak to some of its members about their work and how they believe it benefits research.

Dr Olly Boney and Dr Cliff Shelton, what does PCPIE do?

OB: In a nutshell, we review research proposals and provide feedback from a patient and/or carer perspective.

Our membership is very diverse, and most members have a completely non-clinical background so they are well placed to appraise studies through a patient-focused lens and suggest improvements to a study’s design to make it more patient-friendly.

As a maturing specialty, it’s inevitable that ICM looks to its own future as an independent college which directly represents the interests of its fellows and members and the patients we treat.

While we continue to share some services with the RCoA (most obviously exams administration and communications services) we need to expand the clinical and secretariat teams to continue to deliver and grow the functions expected of the future UK College of ICM.

All outputs from the FICM Board and its committees are delivered by volunteer clinicians, many with busy clinical roles or still in ICM training. Likewise, our secretariat team although small is high calibre and punches above its weight. If we are to realise the future UK College of ICM, we’ll need to push further and deeper, doing more with more resources. In preparation for that we’ve made changes to the exams team and also embarked on a series of member engagements.

I have recently been offered a role as a specialist anaesthetist. This is the final stage of my career pathway. To most, becoming a consultant is the final stage. To those not on the trainee pathway, the goal is to become a specialist.

The introduction of the specialist grade in April 2021 has finally given SAS doctors a new genuine career progression opportunity. This contract allows experienced anaesthetists to have a role that recognises the value we bring to our departments. Although this is a very new role, many trusts have created specialist anaesthetist posts that offer a fair and balanced job plan.

I will have started in my new role by the time of publication of this article. The agreed job plan is very different to the role that I currently have. I will be working on a variety of elective, urgent and emergency lists in a range of specialties in a major trauma centre. My employers have been very understanding about my family situation, and have agreed to keep my days fixed and close together so that time away from home is minimised.

When I was first asked by the College to write a short article on the talk I had given earlier in the year on the history of medicine, I was initially hesitant for the simple reason that the subject was so vast to do justice to, and moreover that it had to be accessible to everyone. The diplomatic and persuasive skills of my colleagues encouraged me to write this short article on an extremely fascinating and illustrious period in the life of medicine and healthcare – the period from the 8th to the 15th century.

I am passionate about patient-centred and evidence-centred medicine, and hope to show how these principles were taken to unprecedented levels of excellence and refinedness in this period by Islamic medicine in a way that is to be seen in very few other areas of the history of medical science. When one elucidates each story in this history it can only be described by Bolt’s phrase: sophistication upon sophistication. Due to prescribed editorial limits, the article will centre on only three illustrious individuals: Abulcasis, Ibn al-Nafis and Avicenna. Firstly, the article looks at the overall contribution, and then secondly at the specific contribution and impact of these master clinicians.

This credentialing journey has been one long road, but 2024 will finally see us making further inroads.

When the General Medical Council recently approved the ‘Curriculum for the Credential for the Specialist in Pain Medicine’, we were delighted that six years of hard work has come to fruition.

To date, specialist training in pain medicine has largely only been open as part of the CCT training in anaesthesia or post-CCT for a small number of consultants who opted to pursue training.

Winter can be hard for many of us, with the combination of longer nights, shorter days and the rounds of respiratory infections that come our way.

It can help to think of wellbeing as a balance between restorative and protective activities and those activities that are draining or reinvigorating. These are, of course, different for each of us and so the best person to advise you on what works for you is yourself. That said, there are some simple steps that are likely to pay real dividends and help you thrive through the long dark winter months.