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Thank you to all who attended the Trainees’ Meeting at the Autumn BGS conference. We had an excellent turnout with over 60 SpRs and STs present.

Trainees Committee
There have been a number of changes to the Trainees Committee, Claire Steves who has been an Education and Training representative for the last two years has now been elected onto the Policy Committee, replacing Jonathan Birns who was appointed to a consultant post in the summer. I would like to thank both of them for all the hard work they have put in on our behalf, Claire has been particularly instrumental in improving the communication and information flow from the BGS committees to the trainee group as a whole.

Welcome to Peter Burbridge, who has been working in the Wessex deanery, but is moving to Oxford as an ST and is joining us as the new Education and Training Committee (ETC) representative. Those who were at the meeting will know it was a hotly contested post, and Adrian Blundell, an SpR in the Trent deanery, who also stood but was unsuccessful, is being co-opted onto the Trainees Management Committee as Meetings Secretary with a view to organising an educational (and social) weekend for Trainees in the near future.

The Knowledge Based Assessment
Once again, this was the main topic of discussion at our meeting. Dr Oliver Corrado, the BGS lead on the exam, joined us to answer questions directly (see his update), and Dr Tom Smith (BGS outgoing Treasurer) also attended. I will be circulating a summary of the discussion shortly.

Many concerns, predominantly around the cost of the assessment were raised and discussed. Unfortunately, many of the answers are dependent on the Federation of Royal Colleges, rather than the Society. We will try to arrange for somebody from the financial side of the exam to speak and answer questions at our next Trainees meeting in the spring.

There is still no further information regarding tax-deductibility of the exam, and the cost of re-sits.

There are no formal revision guides for the exam; a group in Dundee is developing an educational resource. More detail will be coming from Adam Gordon (ETC rep). There is an alternative free data-base of questions, written by a geriatrician, that can be downloaded from www.medexam.net. It is of concern to the Trainees’ Committee that this issue might be monopolised by various private companies who will charge high prices for the information. Hopefully there will be some positive developments on this issue in the near future.

Regional Training Days
Thanks to all those who have responded so far, but I still need to hear from trainees in the North East, Peninsula and East Midlands about how your Geriatric Medicine training days are organised, how they are funded and what form they take.

If there are other issues concerning trainees and training, please don’t hesitate to contact myself or one of the other committee members. Our email contacts are on the BGS website.

Zoe Wyrko
Chairman
Trainees’ Committee

BGS Newsletter, Dec 2008
Issue 19 ISSN 1748-6343 19