Clinical Fellow in Paediatric Plastic Surgery

Job overview

This is a 12-month post within the Paediatric Plastic Surgical service at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Birmingham Children’s Hospital is a specialist tertiary referral centre treating paediatric patients with plastic surgical problems from across the West Midlands and beyond. It provides an excellent opportunity to gain exposure to general and specialist paediatric plastic surgery.  The post holder will get broad experience of children’s hand and upper limb surgery including brachial plexus surgery, vascular anomalies, surgery for cleft lip and/or palate and facial palsy including corneal re-innervation as well as all aspects of burn care in children. Experience in craniofacial surgery can be gained within the post but if this is your primary area of interest, there is a craniofacial fellowship which can be applied for separately and may suit you better.

It will be expected that applicants will already have completed training in plastic surgery and will be using this opportunity to gain sub-specialist experience. The consultant body will support candidates who wish to prepare for the FRCS (Plast) exam.

Main duties of the job

This is a paid full time post which will rotate through the sub-specialist services of plastic surgery including surgery for cleft lip and palate, burns, congenital hand and upper limb and hand trauma.  It is expected that Clinical Fellows will participate in all departmental activities including on call, daily ward rounds, elective and trauma operating lists and peri-operative care of these patients, audit and teaching.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical expectations

• Normal Working day is 8am-5pm and will include attending elective surgeries, seeing patients in out-patients clinics and managing patients on your firm peri-operatively. This will be determined by the weekly plastic surgical rota.

• Middle grades currently do a 1 in 8 12-hour shift system. On call duties include:

• A ward round of all plastic surgery inputs and management of these patients with support from the plastic surgical consultants.

• Attend the Emergency Department to assess, plan and deliver treatment of patients referred to plastic surgery

• Take referrals both from within the trust and our network of referring trusts from across the region and provide appropriate management advice.

• Perform emergency/urgent operations for patients who require it with support from a consultant.

• Please note there is a speciality SHO on call below the middle grade, but they are shared so there is a significant proportion of SHO administrative work that may need to be done by the trainee.

• Assist in the clinical teaching and audit activities of the department.

• We may require you to cover colleagues in their absence in the case of sickness or other unforeseen circumstances.

• A large proportion of the on-call workload is hand and upper limb injuries and previous experience of management of paediatric hand trauma, including the management of bony trauma, is essential.