Key Contacts
Head of School of Medicine: Dr Carolyn Mackinlay
Associate Dean for Medicine: Dr Jon Francis
Education programme Manager: Louise Peckham / Joanne Pickstone
Education programme coordinator: Kayleigh Merry
Welcome
The Severn Postgraduate School of Medicine is a vibrant organisation firmly committed to training future generations of physicians. We aspire to excellence through providing the highest quality of medical training whilst encouraging innovation and research. Our rotations provide clinical experience in district general hospitals, both small and large, and our teaching hospitals.
The Severn area offers something for everyone; the elegant Georgian cities of Bath and Cheltenham, the cosmopolitan feel of Bristol, and easy access to beautiful countryside and coastline. Leisure, sports and cultural opportunities are superb, with excellent rail links to London and the M5 motorway for the Devon and Cornwall coasts further south.
Our Head of School, Training Programme Directors, College Tutors and educational supervisors are highly motivated with a passion for educating and supporting trainees, to ensure they achieve their full potential. We are ably supported by an efficient management team based at Severn Postgraduate Medical Education (PGME).
The Severn School has close links with its sister school in the Peninsula as part of Health Education England working in the southwest.
Information about Severn School of Medicine
The Severn School of Medicine began in embryo form in the summer of 2006. It combined the former roles of Severn PGME and the Royal College of Physicians in supervising, organising and supporting training in postgraduate medicine in the region. Since then we have been focussing our efforts on achieving the highest possible standards of postgraduate medical education in our School. To help us in this task the School Board has 4 trainee members (2 each from core training and higher training) to ensure that trainees’ views and concerns are aired and dealt with.
We have nearly 400 trainees in core and higher specialty training. With these large numbers, electronic communication is the principle way of communication. If you are already working in Severn as a medicine trainee, please make sure that you check the website regularly for information on courses and the targets that you need to achieve; such as keeping your ePortfolio up to date and deadlines for issues like ARCP (Annual Review of Competence Progression). It is also crucial that we have up to date email addresses for all trainees. This is your responsibility, so please make sure that you inform your Education Programme Manager if your email address changes england.schoolofmedicine.sw@nhs.net .
Trusts within Severn
University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust – Bristol and Weston
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust - Taunton
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - Swindon
Royal United Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - Bath
North Bristol NHS Trust - Bristol
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – Cheltenham and Gloucester
Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – Yeovil
Structure of the School
Leadership comes from the Head of School, who is responsible to the Postgraduate Dean, Dr Geoff Smith and Dr Jon Francis, Associate Postgraduate Dean, for ensuring and maintaining the highest standards of postgraduate education in medicine. Managerial support is given by the School of Medicine Education Programme Managers and Coordinator.
The committee structure of the School is illustrated below. The overall strategy of the School is planned by the School Board whose members include 4 trainee representatives. The board is supported by two main committees:-
The Internal Medicine Training (IMT) Committee is chaired by the IMT Training Programme Director who is supported by Royal College of Physicians Tutors from each Trust, supporting educational supervisors and two trainee representatives. It is responsible for organising the IMT rotations and local training programmes in each of the Trusts, and for reviewing the progress of trainees through the ARCP (Annual Review of Competence Progression) system which is based on trainee ePortfolio records.
The Higher Training (HST) Committee is chaired by the Head of School. It comprises the Training Programme Directors and Royal College Specialty Advisers for the 22 specialties in Severn, together with 2 higher specialty trainees. It is responsible for the overall supervision of higher specialty training in the medical subspecialties. However, the detailed organisation and supervision of each specialty is the responsibility of the individual Training Programme Directors who are supported by a Training Committee (Specialty Advisory Committee SAC) of consultants in their specialty. Most of these committees also have trainee representatives. Locally in each Trust a lead educational supervisor (Speciality Tutor) liaises with the Training Programme Director to maintain training standards.
On graduation from Internal Medicine Training, with successful completion of the ARCP, trainees will apply nationally to the higher specialty training programme of their choice.
On other pages of the website you can find more details of our Internal Medicine Training and Higher Specialty Training programmes.