CHairman's message
 Chris Meadows
GAT Chairman 2007-
Email: gat@aagbi.org
Interesting Times
Life, so the saying goes, begins at forty. I, for one, certainly hope so. For the GAT Committee, the end of 2007 marked 40 years of an anaesthetic trainee group at the Association. Originally called the Associates in Training, the Committee consisted of a Chairman, Secretary and three members, elected from a membership of just 200 individuals. The major concerns at their first Annual General Meeting, held in Bristol on March 29th 1968, were, perhaps not surprisingly, the passage of ‘time-expired’ senior registrars into Medical Assistant (or sub-consultant) grades, and the fluctuating availability of study leave to attend courses and conferences. Some things never change.
The GAT Committee today consists of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Honorary Secretary and nine Committee members elected from a membership totalling more than 3500. This number account for over one third of the total AAGBI membership. One of the terms of reference of the GAT Committee is that its members should normally represent the geographical basis of the Association. I am happy to report that today’s Committee reflects this very well with elected members from Oxford, Newcastle, Wessex, Cambridge, South Wales, London & the South East, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. We meet four times a year and, between us, sit on no less than 37 other committees and working parties, representing and promoting the interests of anaesthetic trainees across the Association, College, Intensive Care Society (ICS) and the BMA.
The GAT Committee is also part of the Common Interests Group, an international collaboration between anaesthetic trainee groups from the UK, Canada, Australia and the USA. There is no doubt as to the constructive nature of international dialogue. All countries’ groups mutually benefit in terms of understanding, exchange of ideas, and support of fellow trainees worldwide. In 2007, we welcomed two members of the Group of Australian Society of Anaesthetists Clinical Trainees (GASACT) Committee to our Annual Scientific Meeting in Brighton. In return, I was invited by the President of the ASA to attend their 66th National Scientific Congress in Perth, WA, as a lecturer and delegate. During the GASACT Committee meeting, the National Chair (Dr Michael Farr) gave his annual report on the state of anaesthetic training in Australia. It is best summed up by the following extract:
“anaesthetic trainees in this country are currently enjoying a period of ongoing overall contentment with respect to quality of training, working conditions, and professional opportunities. This is reflected in the lack of major new issues or ongoing concerns requiring immediate attention.”
My own presentation was, sadly, not so positive. I outlined the history of MMC and MTAS over the last year, together with photographs from the demonstration in London; the implications of the EWTD; manpower planning in the NHS and medical school numbers; the issues of fatigue, on-call rooms, shift patterns and competence; NHS ‘expansion’ and the consultant contract together with the issue of a sub-consultant grade; recent events surrounding availability of study and training budgets, alterations to salaries, the New Deal and ‘pay protection’; the proposed changes outlined in both ‘Good Doctors, Safer Patients’ and the related government White Paper; and finally, restrictions to overseas doctors’ UK working opportunities and the abolition of permit-free training with reference to HSMPs. This latter subject provoked much discussion. The general consensus was that medicine worldwide flourishes by collaboration and swapping of ideas and innovations, and that the UK government’s recent actions on restricting working opportunities were seen as counter-intuitive and in direct opposition to international progress. At the conclusion, the Canadian trainee representative highlighted the ongoing ‘trainee friendly’ relationship between Australia and Canada. The GAT Committee believes that removing the NHS from the global healthcare market of medical excellence can only be a retrograde step which will undoubtedly put reciprocal training for UK graduates in jeopardy.
In 1968, at the AGM, one of the key points expressed was that anaesthesia, ‘now a specialty in its own right’, should be a compulsory subject in medical schools. The difficulty of bringing anaesthesia to the attention of medical students plagues us still. Very little time in the undergraduate curriculum is given to a specialty that will eventually form the basis of a large percentage of careers. In order to reach students, the GAT Committee, along with the College and ICS, promotes anaesthesia at the BMJ Careers Fair each year. In 2007, we produced a revised and updated edition of our booklet ‘Your Career in Anaesthesia’, aimed specifically at undergraduates and pre-registration doctors. For those taking part in careers fairs, copies are now available both online (www.aagbi.org/gat/publications.htm) and in print directly from the Association.
Liverpool, the 2008 European Capital of Culture, will host this year’s GAT Annual Scientific Meeting. The programme is already in place, the social events booked and, in the hands of local organising committee Prof. Jennifer Hunter and SpRs Liz Clark and Lindsay Parker, together with AAGBI Honorary Secretary Dr Les Gemmell, the ASM promises to be bigger and better than ever. The dates are 2nd-4th July and study leave should be booked now.
I suppose, thinking back, one might be forgiven for remembering the biggest medico-political event of the last year as England finally introducing a smoking ban, or perhaps the H5N1 outbreak at Bernard Matthews’ farm in Norfolk. However, it is clear that for 30,000 junior doctors, 2007 will still be remembered as the year in which a 5 year old plan to restructure medical training was hurriedly implemented amid cries of protest that grew until they brought about the downfall of a Secretary of State. It is no secret that MMC and MTAS have been responsible for the most destructive episode in postgraduate medical training since records began. For the past two years, the GAT Committee have, on your behalf, been actively engaging politicians and professionals alike and will continue to do so to protect the interests of anaesthetic trainees. Selection into training in 2008 will be by no means an easy ride with forecasts of applicant to vacancy ratios worse than last year. The GAT Committee will be closely monitoring events and reacting to inequitability. We intend to make better use of electronic communication to inform members and to gather consensus opinion, particularly during the selection processes.
Looking forward to 2009, at the time of writing, the GAT Committee has offered its full support to the proposals outlined in Sir John Tooke’s interim report, ‘Aspiring to Excellence’. Whilst we appreciate that different specialties will undoubtedly wish to ‘tweak’ the proposals to suit their own situation, we believe this report represents a singular opportunity for the medical profession to unite, place last year’s calamitous events behind it, and look ahead with a commitment to producing the best doctors for NHS patients. We offer our wholehearted support.
Chris Meadows
Chairman, GAT
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