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Knowledge Based Assessment (now known as Speciality Certificate Exam)
The first sitting of the exam will take place in this month. Despite the best efforts of Dr Corrado, and the presentation of a petition signed by trainees to the Federation of Royal Colleges, no progress has been made on either securing free re-sits or combining the exam fee with college membership to make it tax deductible. It will be interesting to see how many candidates take the exam this year.

Dual Accreditation in Geriatrics and General Internal Medicine (G(I)M)
Late last year we became aware of a discrepancy in that those people starting as ST3s in August 2007 & 2008 will, on completion of their training, receive a CCT (Certificate of Completion of Training) in Geriatric Medicine, and a Level 2 Accreditation in Acute Medicine. This is in contrast to SpRs on the old training scheme, and STs starting their training from August 2009, who will be dual accredited in both Geriatrics and G(I)M. This applies to all medical speciality trainees between these times.

This has been of great concern to many, as this is the cohort who were caught up in the chaos of MMC, are the first group for whom the SCE is compulsory now, they will be disadvantaged when applying for consultant appointments if competing against those who started their specialist training at an earlier or later date. The initial solution proposed was for the affected group to apply via the article 14 route to enrol on the Specialist Register for G(I)M but we felt this was unacceptable because it is not held in equal standing as a full CCT.

We have had substantial support from consultant colleagues and the various committees within the BGS, with many letters being written to PMETB and the JRCPTB. The topic has also been raised on our behalf at College meetings. I have been interviewed by the ‘Newshound’ section of BMJ careers, and an article was published.

As I write, there are rumours that a joint statement is being prepared by PMETB and JRCPTB to outline the process by which this group can obtain two CCTs without incurring extra cost. I will update via the email cascade and the BGS website as more information becomes available.

Zoe Wyrko
Chair
Trainees Committee

BGS Newsletter, March 2009
Issue 19 ISSN 1748-6343 20