Registrar Doctor in Sarcoma Surgery

Job overview

This post is intended for surgical trainees who wish to dedicate further time to training in specialist surgical oncology. For this reason this post is likely to be most suitable for those who are at the latter stages of or have completed their Specialist Training Programme. The successful applicant will work on the Soft Tissue Sarcoma (STS) and malignant melanoma (MM) units at The Royal Marsden Hospital.

Approximately eight hundred new cases of STS are referred to the RMH every year and are treated by a multidisciplinary team. All new cases are reviewed at a weekly multidisciplinary meeting where management is discussed. This provides the Registrar with an unparalleled experience. Surgical management includes soft tissue tumours of the limbs and limb girdle, intra- abdominal and trunk, and minimally invasive surgery where appropriate. About 5% of these patients will require reconstruction of skin and soft tissue. There will be opportunities for clinical research and the preparation of papers for presentation and publication.

Main duties of the job

Similarly, there is a multidisciplinary team handling patients with malignant melanoma. There will be ample opportunities to learn techniques of lymph node dissection, isolated limb perfusion and laser vaporisation of in-transit metastatic melanoma, and the administration of intra-lesional therapies.

The unit provides a diagnostic service for patients referred under the suspicion of sarcoma through a series of linked diagnostic centres in the region who initially assess patients and suspicious cross-sectional imaging is reviewed in a dedicated diagnostic MDT on Friday morning. Patients with likely diagnoses of sarcoma then brought for assessment at the Royal Marsden. The successful applicant will be involved in this diagnostic pathway.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

There is a major Thursday afternoon outpatient joint oncology clinic with all consultants and other oncological specialties and a Friday morning new patient clinic for suspected or confirmed sarcoma and melanoma patients. There are clinics on Monday morning in both Chelsea and Sutton seeing a mixture of new and follow-up patients.

Multidisciplinary team meetings for sarcoma are held weekly on Friday lunchtime and fortnightly on Thursday lunchtimes alongside the weekly diagnostic MDT. The melanoma multidisciplinary meeting alternates with the Thursday sarcoma meeting. The registrar will have the opportunity of attending any of the other weekly meetings held at The Royal Marsden Hospital. For example there is a Friday morning breast audit meeting as well as a weekly hospital radiology meeting. Other educational opportunities include the Departmental Journal club, Hospital Grand Rounds and Schwartz Rounds.

Other units hold meetings where patient management is discussed and for a registrar committed to surgical oncology, all of these will provide excellent training opportunities. The registrar can interact freely with colleagues on the other surgical units gaining valuable clinical experience.

On-Calls

On-call duties may vary depending on the requirements of the department and will be confirmed prior to the successful candidate’s start date.

Where on-call duties are applicable, international medical graduates will be expected to be competent to participate in the on-call rota after six weeks of employment, following completion of the required induction and departmental sign-off.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.