Clinical Fellow Paediatric Cardiology

Job overview

The Clinical Fellow in Paediatric Cardiology will join a team of 11 middle-grade doctors, contributing to the delivery of specialist paediatric cardiology services across inpatient and outpatient settings. The post offers an excellent opportunity to develop and consolidate clinical experience in paediatric cardiology through exposure to a broad spectrum of congenital and acquired cardiac conditions, supporting the ongoing care of children with complex cardiac disease. This post is offered on a fixed-term basis for an initial period of 12 months. The duration of the appointment is linked to service and training requirements, and there may be the opportunity for an extension beyond the initial term should these requirements not be met within the 12-month period.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will provide support for the daily running of the paediatric cardiology service. The candidate will be expected to provide support to inpatient and outpatient services. This post will involve supervision of the daily medical care of all cardiology inpatients, contribution to outpatient services, support for the Heart Investigations Unit, and participation in a full-shift rota at the middle grade level.  There is a daily PICU ward round with the Cardiothoracic Surgeons and Intensivists. The individual would be expected to undertake any other duties requested by any of the Consultant Cardiologists, should the need arise.

The post involves working on a 1:10 rota in a full shift system.  The working hours are in line with the current European Working Time Directive (EWTD), with an average work week comprising of 40 hours

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Inpatient Activity: The Clinical Fellow would be expected to support inpatient activity for all children requiring cardiac reviews, would work very closely with the on-call cardiology consultant (who has no other programmed activity during this period) and would be responsible for leading the ward rounds, planning the daily management and treatment of patients on the wards.  The Clinical Fellow would be accountable to the on-call cardiologist & cardiac surgeon of the week.

Outpatient Activity: We would recommend that the Fellow should be undertaking 2-3 clinics per week. The patients seen in the clinic should be discussed with the consultants, as appropriate.

We also run nurse-led clinics, and the Fellow would be expected to work closely with the advanced nurse practitioners (ANP), other senior nursing staff, cardiac physiologists, cardiac surgeons and dieticians to develop working within a multi-disciplinary team.

On call:  The successful candidate will be expected to undertake on-call commitments planned at a 1:10 on call. This also involves on-call cover over the weekends. The individual will be expected to undertake an out-of-hours commitment, which will vary depending on the duties of the post but will not exceed the limits defined in the Terms and Conditions of Service. Working patterns are in accordance with the New Deal on Junior Doctors’ Hours, and the European Working Time Directive (EWTD).

The candidate would be expected to work closely with the PICU and Hospital@Night teams to provide cardiology cover for the hospital and referring centres, with support from the senior cardiologist and the cardiac surgeons. At night, it is expected that the Fellow does a relevant night round with the SHO & nurse-in-charge on both the cardiology wards

Exposure within specialist areas: The aim of this post is to provide experience in general paediatric cardiology. Though exposure may be provided to subspecialty areas this is not a subspecialty training post.

Administrative: As discussed above, the Fellow would be expected to undertake certain administrative tasks within the department, which would include the preparation of cases for discussion in the Joint Cardiology Conferences after due discussion with the consultants. In addition, the Fellow, depending on the level of experience, would be expected to undertake reporting of investigations done by the Heart Investigation Unit (HIU). We would envisage being able to support a session for administrative/professional developmental activity.

Teaching

The organisation of educational supervision within the department is done according to guidelines and standards set out by the Postgraduate Dean and the Royal Colleges of Physicians, and of Paediatrics and Child Health.   There are facilities in the Education centre for teaching and training. Good facilities exist for producing teaching materials such as illustrated guidelines and distance-learning packages in hard copy or in electronic forms.  The hospital library has Level 1 accreditation with distinction (1999).

The individual will be expected to contribute to undergraduate medical student teaching and to play a role in the training of other relevant staff groups.

Training

Although this is a non-training post, the successful candidate will be encouraged to develop & maintain appropriate level of skills to support the individual’s role within the department, and his/her professional development. The candidate will have a supervising consultant with whom he/she would be expected to discuss their professional development.