Weston General Hospital
Weston General Hospital in the small suburb of Uphill and only 5 minutes walk from the beach. The Rheumatology Department is is based in the Churchill Unit with clinics in the main outpatients.
Weston Hospital Has:
320 Beds
60 Consultants
14 wards
6 major theatres
1 day-case unit
1 emergency department
Intensive care unit
Coronary care unit
The Rheumatology team
Consultants:
Dr Sandra Green/ Dr Stuart Webber/ Dr Samy Zakout
Registrar: 1 Full time speciality registrar (+/- GIM training depending on rotation)
Specialist nurses:
Helen Gilmore
Ken Davies
Ruth Carron (Osteoporosis)
Secretaries:
Sue Osman
Anne Collins (Dr Green)
Teresa Bale (Dr Stuart Webber)
+1 Rheumatology Physios / 1 Rheumatology Occupational therapist / Podiatrists / nurses / volunteers
There are a variety of clinics in operation including:
- General Rheumatology clinics (Mon am/pm, Tue am/ Wed pm, Thurs am, Fri am/pm)
- Early synovitis clinic (Monday am) Tuesday am
- Connective Tissue Disease clinics (1st Friday of the month am)
- Joint Injection clinics (Tuesday AM)
- Ankylosing Spondylitis clinic (2nd Friday of the month am)
- DEXA scan reporting and Osteoporosis case review
- Medical Student Teaching clinics (Some Thursday’s am)
- Nurse-led Osteoporosis clinics
- Nurse-led General Rheumatology clinics (Monday and Friday)
- Nurse-led Blood monitoring clinics (Wednesday)
As the Rheumatology Registrar you will be directly involved in running the early synovitis clinic on a Monday morning, the injection clinic on a Tuesday morning, and the medical student teaching clinics. You will also have a Friday am general Rheumatology clinic and a once a month connective tissue disease clinic. (When dual GIM/Rheumatology training on call GIM duties will be timetabled with a reduced rheumatology clinic commitment)
You will also provide support to the Specialist Nursing Staff in conjunction with the Consultants. More than adequate supervision is available from the friendly and approachable Consultants. You will usually see the equivalent of 10 follow up patients in a full clinic and therefore there is plenty of time to learn about the cases you are seeing.
Most ward referrals are seen by the Registrar and then discussed with the Consultants if necessary. You may see on average 5 referrals a week.
There is no on-call commitment with this post if single accredited but GIM on-call if dual accredited.
Facilities
We have access to a number of radiological investigations on-site including:
- Plain X-ray
- Ultrasound
- CT scanning
- MRI scanning
- Bone densitometry scans (DEXA)
We have access to day-case care in the Hospital’s MDU unit for certain drug infusions (bisphosphonates, biologic drugs, methylprednisolone).
Rheumatology Helpline
The telephone helpline is well established and has been available for a number of years now. It is run by our Specialist Nurses. If the nurses are unavailable the calls will usually be taken by our secretaries and filtered through to the Doctors to attend to.
Medical Student Teaching
The Rheumatology Department is involved in teaching third year medical students from the University of Bristol during their MDEMO attachments. We usually have a group of 5-6 students at any one time.
The students will generally sit in with the doctors/nurses during the clinics. There will not usually be more than 2 students with each doctor/nurse.
On most Thursday mornings we run medical student teaching clinics. This will have a maximum of 8 patients for the medical students to clerk and examine and then be reviewed by the Registrar.
Teaching role
In addition to your part-time rheumatology role you work as a part-time clinical fellow. You deal with the bulk of the teaching for the 3rd year MDEMO group. You will often find yourself teaching other groups including 3rd year general medicine and surgery students and 2nd year students.
From a Trainees perspective:
“I think this is a very enjoyable and appropriate post for a second year trainee. There is a good level of supervision and plenty of opportunities to see extra patients if you wish to. The unit itself is very friendly and a nice environment for the patients. The teaching side of the job provides variety and is very rewarding.
There have been some problems due to staff shortages but these are beginning to resolve. There will be a more stable team in the future with hopefully a full complement of Specialist Nurses and appropriate secretarial support.”
Research
This department is involved in recruiting to a number of national research studies including SCOOP (osteoporosis), ERAN (early arthritis) RAFT fatigue study and the BSR biologics register.
NORTH SOMERSET ACADEMY
Your teaching commitments will be based in the North Somerset Academy on the same site as the hospital itself. You will have a shared office in the building and access to all its facilities. This modern and well equipped academy is a terrific resource for teaching students and has computers, projectors, DVD and a digital video camera readily available.
ACCOMMODATION
The Hospital residences are an estate of modern semi-detached houses. A real community atmosphere resides here, because all hospital workers share the accommodation, students, doctors and other healthcare professionals alike. Each house has 6 fully furnished rooms, each with a sink and desk. The houses share a communal kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and a lounge. They are equipped with a microwave, washing machine, spin dryer, iron + board, television and all standard kitchen appliances.
Library:
This is open 24 hours/day with your swipe card. It has plenty of computers and printing/photocopying available. Internet access is good but slower during the day. Some people were able to get wireless from the top rooms of the Residences. There are no late charges for due books.
Doctors’ Mess:
The friendly mess is a great place to get to know the other doctors and relax.
The Canteen ‘Rafters’:
Opening Hours: 8:30-10:45; 12:00-2:00; 5:30-7:30.
The Gym: Free out side of working hours
(contact through physiotherapy department)
The gym has:
- Bench and dumbells (no barbells)
- Standard aerobic exercise equipment
- (runner, stepper, cross trainer)
- A table tennis table
Outside of the Hospital
Within walking distance:
- The Ship Inn: a friendly pub, skittle allet, pool table
- The Dolphin: good in the summer as lots of seating outside
- The Beach
- Golf club: Lynx course, fairly hard and expensive
Getting There
Car: There are 3 routes to Weston in order of preference:
- M5 via Clifton suspension bridge and Gordano services J14 (TOLL - 50p)
- M5 via Avonmouth and the A4 into Bristol/Stoke Bishop
- A370 via Cumberland Basin/Hotwells.
Train:
This is an option, but again you will need to get to Bristol Temple Meads and from Weston rail station to the hospital.
This page was last updated Feb 2016