Senior Clinical Fellow - Microsurgery Fellow in Plastic Surgery

This post is for a Microsurgery Fellow in Plastic Surgery. This is a whole-time fixed term post offering an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated Surgeon looking to progress their career in microsurgery to join a dynamic, rapidly expanding team delivering multidisciplinary acute care from the Mersey Regional Burns and Plastic Surgery unit at Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals.

Applications are invited from individuals seeking specialist training in breast reconstruction with a focus on microsurgical reconstruction. The Plastic Surgery Department at MWLT performs around 170 free flap breast reconstructions per year. There is also a significant non-microsurgical breast reconstructive workload including asymmetry correction, congenital, breast reduction, revisional breast surgery and subtotal breast reconstruction carried out in the department.

The successful candidate will be expected to have full Registration with the GMC at the time of appointment. Candidates without GMC will progress if shortlisted for interview, though will be expected to have full GMC registration at the time of appointment.

It is anticipated that this postholder would be involved in a number of free flap cases per week and will attend breast reconstruction focused clinics each week as well as preparing and presenting the monthly Breast Reconstruction MDT.

Once in post the microsurgery fellow can expect to be trained in the full remit of breast reconstruction with a heavy focus on microsurgical cases. They will contribute to the general plastic surgery on call and will be encouraged to attend flap salvage cases out of hours on an informal basis.

Due to the clinical demands of this post, it is ideally aimed at individuals who have completed their FRCS (Plast), or who are post-accreditation, but seeking further specialist microvascular training.

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is the only acute Trust in Cheshire and Merseyside, and one of the few in the entire country, to achieve the title of OUTSTANDING, rated by the Care Quality Commission.

The Trust’s vision is to provide 5 Star Patient Care. Every single member of staff plays a huge part in this, no matter what your role, you will make a difference and support the delivery of this vision. It is vital to our ongoing success that we all share the same aspiration, the same focus, and provide the same high standards right across the organisation and we can do this by focusing on 5 key areas:

1. CARE that is consistently high quality, compassionate, and provides the best possible experience for our patients and their families.
2. SAFETY that is of the highest standards, where staff feel empowered to further improve services and reduce the risk of harm.
3. PATHWAYS that reduce variations in care to improve outcomes, whilst respecting the individual needs of patients.
4. SYSTEMS that are efficient, user-friendly, and reliable. Drawing upon best practice to ensure our processes support the needs of our patients.
5. COMMUNICATION that is open and inclusive. Always showing patients, their families and our colleagues, the dignity and respect we would wish for ourselves.

To assist Consultants and Specialty Doctors with patient management, the successful candidate will assist with the day to day running of the service and to supervise, help and instruct the junior doctors as part of the team. The successful post holder will be expected to assist and manage the ward patients as well as taking referrals from ED and other departments as required. Duties will include outpatient clinics and operating lists, attendance on other departmental activities e.g., Audit M&M meetings. The successful applicant will participate in the on-call rota.

Audit and Education:

The hospital has a clearly defined programme of medical audit to which the appointee will be expected to contribute. All specialties spend one half day per month on audit and clinical governance. This occurs at the same time for all specialties, allowing an exchange of views between specialties and encourages multi-disciplinary audit. The audit NHD occurs on a different half day each month, rotating from Tuesday morning to Thursday afternoon.

The hospital has a weekly grand round held in the Postgraduate Centre on Tuesday lunchtime. All disciplines take part on a rotational basis. The Centre has a purpose-built lecture theatre, 3 seminar rooms and a library, including electronic databases and internet access. There is a varied programme of lectures and seminars and sub-specialty educational meetings.

The Trust has for decades been one of the three major providers of clinical training for undergraduate medical students from the University of Liverpool.