Year: 2016/17 Current position: Contact: I came to Edinburgh from Switzerland after I had visited the unit half a year earlier. Back then I was impressed by the high degree of sub-specialisation and the massive emergency and elective colorectal caseload, which is probably one of the largest in Europe. I was warmly welcomed by the team and my wife and I both enjoyed very much the vibrant and cosmopolitan city not to mention the options for great outdoors in the Scottish highlands. So I applied for the fellowship and was lucky to start in June 2016. The fellowship was a general colorectal fellowship involving open and laparoscopic colorectal procedures. I had an excellent training in open and lap colectomies and started lap rectal resections. I did a small number of pouch procedures. On top of that I was allowed to perform a number of pelvic floor surgeriess such as laparoscopic mesh rectopexy, SNS and TEMS. In general I had excellent supervision and instruction by the consultants. Duty wise, I was part of the registrar rota and responsible for daily ward rounds with a team of FY doctors and SHOs. We had busy on call weeks, with a wide range of emergency colorectal and general surgery operations. Due to the fact that the WGH is limited to colorectal surgical emergencies, no upper GI general surgical emergencies were treated there. I think the fellowship in the WGH is good for anybody with a particular interest in colorectal surgery. Due to the high degree of specialisation it is possible to get particular insight in very specialized areas such as TEMS or pelvic floor surgery in a relatively short time. A down side is that due to the size of the unit (12-13 Colorectal Consultants) it takes quite some time to get to know the individual team members. It can happen that the interval between two lists with the same consultant can be several weeks which makes it difficult to keep up with the particular operating style („e.g. Edinburgh Scale of Tightness for tying knots…“). Staying a bit longer then just a year would possibly help with this aspect. Another downside is the amount of registrars necessary for keep up with working hour restrictions. This led to phases with too many registrars and fellows and as a consequence, there were not enough elective lists to be shared amongst registras/fellows. I think this should be addressed by any future fellows before applying to make sure that they get as much out of their fellowship as possible. I personally feel I got really a lot out of my fellowship, but I am aware that this was not true for all my fellow colleagues. When it comes to very innovative and experimental operative techniques (taTME, Robotics etc) the team of the Western is definitely more on the conservative side. I mostly agreed with this approach though I felt that given the large caseload the Western would be a perfect place for fast and sustainable evaluation of new methods that have proofed their concept. Concerning the application process one of the major challenges for any overseas/European fellow will be the GMC license which requires a large amount of bureaucratic paperworks concerning the previous work history. One other major challenge is the IELTS examination that needs a proper preparation even for any applicant with good English skills. The test has a very unique format. All in all my year in Edinburgh was a major achievement. Professionally it opened the door to my subspecialisation in Colorectal Surgery and helped my academic career. For my family (my wife and two kids), it was a great and enjoyable experience. We all had a very warm welcome in our neighbourhood and at school. My kids made friends they are still in contact 2 years later and they easily learned English. We would definitely do it again! Summary of logbook 205 cases in 12 months: 143 elective, 62 emergency 45 major resections (lap/open 40/60%) Others: SNS (11), Lap VMR (8), EUA and fistula, TEMS, haemorrhoidectomy formation/closures of colostomy/ileostomy This article was published on 2024-02-06
