Freely available to all Imperial School of Anaesthesia Trainees
Consultant led course - intense viva preparation including exam technique
The Marsden have a slot open for their airway research fellowship from Aug 2021. They will be considering any applications that arrive by/on the 4th December and plan to interview on the 18th December. The application is through the Marsden website fellowship pages (and not NHS jobs).
Please apply now for Fellowship posts in 2021/2022
Register to attend this Online event
12 month post involving 50% education and 50% clinical work. Develop and deliver educational opportunities for anaesthetic trainees including simulation training. Funding available to undertake a PG Cert in Education.
2 six month posts starting Feb '21 and Feb '22
Reminder for ST6s
The North Central School Novice Course booking is now open on Synapse!
Volunteers to host the RCoA stand at Convent of Jesus and Mary Language College’s careers fair.
Introduction
The e-Portfolio was launched in August 2011 and is the system now used by the Royal College to enable anaesthetic training and assessment.
You should be given a username and password when you register with the College.
The log in is available at : https://www.trainingeportfolio.rcoa.ac.uk/login
Support with using the e-Portfolio is available at:
https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/trainee-e-portfolio/guidance-notes
Or by emailing : e-Portfolio@rcoa.ac.uk Or by phoning : 0207 092 1556
If you have not received a log on please contact the School.
Getting started
Once logged in, make sure that your ‘User Details’ are up-to-date. This will allow you to be linked to your College Tutor depending on your training location. You will need to nominate and link to an Educational Supervisor when you move hospital. This can be done using the ‘Access’ tab; go to ‘select/change educational supervisor’. Your Educational Supervisor, College Tutor and the schools administration will have access to your portfolio.
Work place based assessments
All WPBAs should now be completed via the e-portfolio. Assessments should be linked to subsections of the curriculum so that it is easy to view your progress in completing units of training.
Assessments can be done together with your clinical supervisor at the time of the learning episode or emailed to them after the session via the e-portfolio. You should aim to email your assessor within a week of completing the clinical case to allow you time to reflect on it.
If your supervisor is not listed as an assessor on the e-Portfolio, it may be that they are eligible to be listed. Imperial School of Anaesthesia requires that all assessors be trained on using the e-Portfolio and have undergone appropriate training to be an assessor. Usually all substantive consultants will be listed as assessors. Locum consultants, staff grade and other trainee anaesthetists may not be – if they are willing to act as assessors they should email Terri Stewart (Terri.Stewart@imperial.nhs.uk) to gain access to the e-portfolio as a potential assessor.
Unit of Training Sign Off
When you have completed a Unit of Training a ‘Unit of Training Sign Off’ should be completed on the e-Portfolio and linked to the curriculum and ARCP record (see below). This is available via the ‘Assessment Tool’ tab under ‘Enter Assessment’. This should be sent to the consultant in charge of that unit of training at your hospital or to your college tutor.
Personal Development Plans
When meeting with your Educational Supervisor, your initial meeting maybe entered as a Personal Development Plan (PDP). Individual PDPs can be entered for each clinical attachment. It is suggested that you divide your PDP into ‘Learning Objectives’ so that these can be approved by your supervisor, and followed throughout the attachment. Once you have completed an objective you can mark it as ‘complete’ and link it to you ARCP record.
An example of a PDP is as follows:
Personal Development Plan 1 : Introductory Meeting with Dr Smith at St Mary’s Hospital
Date range : 15/08/2013 – 04/02/2014
Learning Objectives:
Multi Source Feedback (MSF)
Multi Source Feedback should be conducted through the e-Portfolio. This is conducted through the ‘Enter Assessment’ tab. Once you have entered your list of assessors, your educational supervisor will need to approve the list before the assessments can be sent out – please remind them to do this otherwise the process will be delayed.
You will need to nominate between 5 and 30 assessors on the e-Portfolio and ISA requires at least 8 responses for the MSF to be valid. There is a one month ‘window’ for the assessors to complete their responses after approval from your Educational Supervisor. Until the ‘window’ is closed you and your supervisor will not be able to view their responses. Please make sure that you leave enough time for this process, as the MSF summary should be available for your ARCP.
You need to perform a separate MSF in your intermediate ICM training block (ST3/4). Because this is usually a 3 month block, the MSF should be initiated within 6 weeks of starting your attachment,
A step-by-step guide to completing an MSF via the e-portfolio is available at:
http://www.rcoa.ac.uk/system/files/TRG-EP-MSF.pdf
ARCP
Imperial School of Anaesthesia is now conducting ARCPs for those on the e-portfolio as an electronic ARCP.
e-Portfolio only allows one Educational Supervisors Structured Report (ESSR) per training year to be completed online.
Please ensure you complete an Interim Progress Report on e-Pportfolio for all but your last rotational placement.http://www.rcoa.ac.uk/trainee-e-portfolio/news-and-updates
Your final ESSR http://www.rcoa.ac.uk/document-store/e-portfolio-essr-guide is completed just ahead of your ARCP and should encompass all your training for that year to date.
You must contact your Educational Supervisor to ensure that they have e-Portfolio access. It may be that you will require 1-4 ESSRs for an ARCP, depending on where you have been during that year
If you only have 1 rotation in your training year, please use e-Portfolio only.
Six weeks before your ARCP an Educational Supervisors Structured Report will become available via the ‘Assessment Tool’ page of your e-portfolio. This should be completed then sent for approval by both your Educational Supervisor and College Tutor. Please leave enough time for approval and any changes that may be required.
For every year of training an ARCP record will be created for you. You will need to assign your WPBAs, Unit of Training Sign Offs, PDPs and MSFs to that ARCP record so that it can be viewed at your ARCP. You will see on your ARCP overview that tasks will turn from red to green. The ARCP record will close 24-48 hours before the ‘end date’ of your ARCP record – once it is closed you will be unable to add entries to that ARCP record.
e-Portfolio Library
It is useful to upload as many documents as possible onto your e-Portfolio under the Library tab. This could include previous paper sign offs eg. Certificate of Basic Training, or ARCP outcomes. Storing copies of your qualifications, course attendances, exam results etc is also useful so that it is readily available.
Make sure that you assign your uploads as ‘Personal Evidence’ (not Public Evidence) otherwise it will be accessible by all users of the e-Portfolio!
