Senior Clinical Fellow (Trust Grade ST5+) in Obstetric Anaesthesia

Job overview

The post is for a Senior Clinical Fellow in Obstetric Anaesthesia based at Queen Charlottes & Chelsea Hospital.

Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospital is one of the oldest maternity hospitals in the UK and is internationally renowned for the care of women with complex medical and obstetric problems. It is a busy high risk obstetric unit with nearly 6,000 deliveries per year and is a tertiary referral centre for fetal care.

There are currently 10 consultant anaesthetists with an interest in obstetric anaesthesia and 15 consultant sessions on labour ward/elective caesarean section lists plus a high risk clinic on Thursday afternoons. There are two theatres for elective and emergency work, and a high dependency unit. Elective caesarean sections occur every weekday.

Posts are available for six to twelve months and are suitable for contribution to the Certificate of Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR), and have RCoA approval for OOPE/OOPT.

Previous candidates have participated in quality improvement projects, audit cycles and research, and have achieved the equivalent competencies for advanced training in obstetric anaesthesia as detailed in the Royal College of Anaesthetists curriculum (2010).

Applicants should have a minimum of 4 years of anaesthetics experience, an interest in obstetric anaesthesia, and should be registered with the GMC with a licence to practise. FRCA or equivalent is desirable.

Main duties of the job

This post is based on the labour ward at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital working under the supervision of the labour ward consultant anesthetists Daytime work is scheduled for labour ward. Fellows are expected to attend weekly multi-disciplinary obstetric medicine meetings where all high risk cases are discussed. Multi-disciplinary CTG teaching occurs on Fridays.

While the successful applicant can take over existing research projects it is preferable that they bring their own ideas to the department. It is desirable to have some previous experience of research but not essential. The fellow will be expected to write ethics applications, protocols and also take part in departmental audits. Previous fellows have successfully submitted work for presentation at major meetings and publication in peer reviewed journals such as IJOA.

The obstetric anaesthesia service places a very strong emphasis on junior staff training.

The post-holder is expected to work in a professional and courteous manner with the nursing, midwifery, paramedical, surgical, other medical colleagues, clerical staff and the managerial staff.

The post assumes a thorough understanding of the changes taking place within the Health Service; the vision, the goals and the impact of these on the provision of care and training of junior doctors in the National Health Service.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

General Responsibilities

The rota is a 1 in 8 full shift system, compliant with the junior doctor contract (2019). The fellow is expected to help with elective caesarean sections and emergency work. The fellow covers a gynae-oncology list in main theatre of Hammersmith Hospital when needed. There is also the opportunity to attend high risk obstetric clinics and the high risk obstetric anaesthetic clinic.

Scope & purpose of job description: The job description is not intended to be an inflexible or finite list of tasks and may be varied from time to time after consultation/discussion with the post holder

Audit: The fellow will be expected to write ethics applications, protocols and take part in departmental audits, preferably bringing their own ideas to the department.

Teaching is a core skill: the successful candidate will have an opportunity to teach junior doctors and other members of the multi-disciplinary team. We regularly perform in situ low-fidelity simulation and have recently achieved funding for a high-fidelity simulation suite. We also host annual Regional Training Days in Obstetrics for Stage 1 and Stage 2 trainees in North West London.

Clinical Governance: Regular Clinical Governance, Critical Incident and Mortality & Morbidity meetings happen within the Division of Anaesthesia, on all sites within the Trust.