As most of you know, the new curriculum for geriatric medicine was launched by the JCHMT in December 2002.

Much of the new curriculum is similar to the old but the learning objectives of our training are now clearly specified, as is the knowledge and skills required for achieving these objectives. The next step is to establish methods for the assessment of knowledge and competence and these are currently being explored and piloted by the JCHMT in a number of different specialties.

European Working Time Directive
As all of you know, the impact of the European Working Time Directive is resulting in changes to our working patterns and the introduction of shifts for many of us. Although we have received some informal feedback on this, the Training Committee is currently working on a questionnaire to try to obtain more formal feedback from trainees on the impact of shifts on training.

Stroke Medicine
Stroke Medicine is now a recognised subspecialty. The British Association of Stroke Physicians (BASP) has recently formed a new Trainees Group which met for the first time at BASP’s annual conference last month. The Chair for this group is Jo Kwan (jk@1to1.org) and both Jo and I are keen to improve links between BASP and the BGS at Trainees level. If you are a geriatrics trainee and are interested in stroke medicine, please do contact Jo or myself via email for further information.
Constitution
With the help of Richard Lynham, we have altered the wording of the BGS Trainees Group Constitution, essentially to allow a little more flexibility in the structure of the Trainees’ Committee itself and in our representation on other BGS committees. We hope that you as Trainees will approve this so that it can be in place in October 2003 when we elect a new Trainees’ Committee.

Aberdeen
Our next Trainees’ meeting will be held during the BGS Spring Meeting in Aberdeen. I hope that many of you will be there to discuss the above issues and any others that arise! I have invited Jo Kwan along to this meeting to discuss issues relating to stroke medicine, so do bring your questions along! The Research Surgeries will take place once again during the Spring meeting. These surgeries have been very successful to date and provide you with the opportunity to discuss research issues. So again, I would encourage you to come along with your questions.

And finally, please do keep in contact with your BGS regional representatives who often feed back to me, and with whom I am in contact regularly with updates from my trips to London. And if you haven’t done so already, please visit the Trainees’ website (bgstraining.org.uk) where you’ll find the names and email addresses of the representatives and Trainees’ committee.
See you in Aberdeen!

Cath Church
Chair, Trainees Group
Cath Church (c.j.church@newcastle.ac.uk)