Glasgow Surgical Forum
MDDUS
MMC update
Surgical knots on YouTube
Headgear for Christmas

Glasgow Surgical Forum

The Forum this year was another very successful venture. Well worth attending, there was an interesting range of material and once again the meeting retained a wonderfully practical flavour. Notable as a media first for the Collge was the live streaming of the inaugural Davies Memorial Lecture delivered by Prof Les Blumgart. He was on great form, clearly enjoyed being back in town and the live transmission was watched by many collegaues all over the globe. If you missed it or want to catch it again - find it here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MDDUS

A couple of items caught my eye from the News feed of the MDDUS for November.

Security - be warned. Doctors may in future risk being prosecuted should laptops containing unencrypted patient information be stolen from their cars or homes.

HIV testing. A letter making a renewed call for HIV testing in all healthcare settings has been sent out to doctors and nurses in Scotland from the Scottish CMO and the Chief Nursing Officer.

 

MMC

On 20th November the latest announcement came from MMC [England]. Amongst other items the news about the 2008 recruitment round for Specialty Training will be organised in a staggered fashion, locally led and there will be no national IT system for applications. More details.

 

The CMO for Scotland, Dr Harry Burns is acutely aware of the issues for young doctors and has particular concern for those in limbo despite having made real commitments to their specialty so far. Many of these talented young doctors have been leap-frogged and remain in a state of real uncertainty for the future. The College is seeking to work as hard as possible with the Deans and workforce planners to push for extra places to manage the current bottleneck.

There have been no post Tooke pronouncements from the Scottish MMC team but their site should be worth monitoring. Click the logo to go there.

 

Surgical knot tying on YouTube?

I am sure you know about YouTube already. There are some quite good basic video tutorials which seek to teach instrument handling and basic knotting techniques. Some are worth a look. There are other links but most of the ones I looked at were not of much value. If you use “surgical technique” as a search term within YouTube you will hit all manner of bizarre stuff. Nose jobs, colectomy, liposculpture even replacement of the thoracic aorta. I am sure you must have more to do with your time!

 

 

Trendy headgear for theatre

Fancy a new look in theatre. I dare any of you to report those who succumb to this challenge. Send me a good photo and I will include it! Go on treat yourself and your theatre staff to a new look for the operating room. Get yourself a customised theatre hat from here!

Christmas issue next month. Till then

Best wishes

David Galloway