Wessex Deanery

The majority of the posts rotate through six posts of four months' duration, but some are through four posts of six months duration, or one year in four-month posts, and the other in six-month posts.

All will provide experience and training in at least three of the 'big six' specialties (cardiology, respiratory medicine, gastroenterology, endocrinology & diabetes, geriatric medicine, and acute medicine) to give adequate training in the acute medicine aspects of CMT.

Some rotations contain other specialty posts (eg dermatology, rheumatology, renal medicine, haematology and oncology).

CT1 and CT2 rotations are not necessarily linked in each Trust, so there are opportunities to move between rotations in each year, and sometimes between Trusts. However, CMT is seen as a continuous 24-month programme in Wessex, and out-of-programme-experience is only granted in exceptional circumstances.

Each trust has its own protected-time teaching programme for CMT, with topics mapping to the CMT curriculum. Individual departments will have their own specialty teaching, and Wessex consultant physicians are enthusiastic about on-the-job learning and clinical supervision.

There are many training courses run through the Wessex courses centre and local and regional (Southampton-based) MRCP training. The majority of 2007 entrants to CMT obtained full MRCP in 2009, and 43 out of 65 CT2 Trainees by August 2010.

Educational and clinical supervision and the appraisal process is well-developed in Wessex. Supervisors have been trained using the workplace-based assessment tools to help trainees develop their training, and the learning ePortfolio system is in full use.

Educational supervisors are responsible locally for appraisal, and produce an education supervisor's report before each annual review of competence progression (ARCP) with their trainees.

ARCPs are at eight, 16 and 23 months, and are always face-to-face with a three- or four-member panel, including the CMT programme director and lay advisor. Trainees have an opportunity for confidential feedback and evaluation of their training and posts. Such evaluation has been used to improve our CMT programme.

The Wessex CMT team is headed by Dr Andrew Brooks (programme director), Elizabeth Martin (programme manager for medicine) and Jemma Fisher (specialty programme administrator). Further details of CMT in Wessex Deanery are available on the Wessex Deanery website, where there are more details of the Wessex Deanery general and CMT induction presentations, and one on CMT ARCPs in Wessex for 2009.