Kent, Surrey & Sussex (KSS) Deanery

Core Medical Training (CMT) in the Kent, Surrey & Sussex (KSS) School of Medicine offers exciting two year programmes covering comprehensive exposure to all aspects of general medicine, preparing for a wide range of higher medical training choices.

We are dedicated to training the physicians of the future and have a very successful track record of doing this. Indeed, the 2008 PMETB survey rated the KSS School of Medicine as excellent and ranked it the second-best in England.

CMT programmes are based in regional acute trusts, and include both larger, city-based hospitals, and smaller, more rural placements. Trainees are based in one trust for two years and undertake six four month rotations.

All CMT trainees have a dedicated educational supervisor, who delivers individually-tailored local weekly teaching sessions and is adept in clinical teaching and appraisal. All trainees provide weekly teaching sessions for medical students, and are exposed to acute medical takes to ensure complete coverage of the CMT curriculum.

Our programmes span the whole of the Kent, Surrey and Sussex counties. The aim of ACCS training is to produce multi-competent junior doctors able to recognise and manage the sick patient and who have the complementary specialty training required for the programmes in emergency medicine, acute medicine, anaesthesia, and intensive care medicine.

Where can I train?

ACCS is currently a three year programme with trainees exiting into some of the above specialties. The training year starts in August, with full and comprehensive training in each of your placements.

The posts within these hospitals have been specially selected for ACCS since they provide a comprehensive base from which you would expect to achieve the competencies contained in the ACCS curriculum. The posts have been used now since the inception of ACCS and are known to reliably deliver ACCS training requirements.

In your first year you will have training opportunities at CT1 level in acute medicine and emergency medicine. The trainee would expect to spend six months being spent in each of the above two specialties. CT2-level ACCS in KSS comprises of six/nine months of anaesthesia, and three/six months of intensive care medicine.

Trainees who wish to pursue an emergency medicine theme are appointed to a three-year programme, with the third year in the emergency medicine curriculum in order that they are in a position to apply for ST4 in emergency medicine.

Likewise those following the anaesthesia stream are appointed to a three-year programme, with the third year being spent in the School of Anaesthesia in order that they are in a position to apply for an ST3 post in anaesthesia.

We are currently offering a number of core ACCS training programmes across Kent, Surrey and Sussex, which you can read about on our prospectus website at this link: http://prospectus.kssdeanery.org/accs.

Upon completion of the programme, trainees are able to apply for a post higher specialty training in each of our themed programmes or ICM.

[Please note - only ACCS-acute medicine (ACCS-AM) posts are available via the RCP-SRO recruitment process described elsewhere on this website. For information on applying to posts in the other ACCS streams, please visit the About ACCS page of this website.

The KSS school of medicine hosts seven popular regional training days per annum, which cover extra-curricula topics. Interactive, case-based presentations and electronic voting systems are used during the events, which trainees have consistently rated as excellent.

Practical procedure sessions are also facilitated, and offer hands-on, one-to-one teaching. These events are rated by trainees as outstanding.

MRCP PACES teaching sessions on a sub-regional basis have also been established by the school. These sessions provide regular consultant-led teaching for a six-week period leading up to each diet of the examinations.

In addition, trainees are encouraged to apply to become a trainee representative and to attend regular CMT committee meetings to contribute positively towards the ongoing development of CMT in KSS. Trainees also have the opportunity to submit an abstract for presentation at the annual awards presentation event at Christmas.

All CMT trainees have one-to-one interviews with the head of school and training programme directors. These assist in programme development and ensure that local teaching fits curriculum requirements and trainee needs.

In late 2011/early 2012, KSS will be running a series of recruitment evenings for prospective candidates wishing to apply to training programmes in the Deanery.

These will include providing information on the programmes themselves, the recruitment processes, working in the deanery, as well as discussion with specialty representatives and training programme directors.

For more information on these evenings, please click on the 'recruitment evenings' PDF (160kb) in the upper-left of this webpage. Further to this, details can be gained from the KSS recruitment team, who can be contacted via email at specialtyrecruitment@kssdeanery.ac.uk.