Yesterday, on the 20th of November, Oli and I attended the SCST annual update meeting. It’s the first physiology conference I’ve attended that wasn’t tied to one specific trust (the last one I attended was the Royal United Hospital’s respiratory medicine conference), rather, it was applicable to and attended by cardiac scientists from across the four home nations. The day was packed with talks, networking opportunities and insight into the future of the science. Speakers hailed from a variety of professions and organisations, but all were entrenched in the science of cardiology and education.
Due to the long distance travel and Birmingham’s seemingly city-wide roadworks, Oli and I missed the introduction, but we were present for the rest of the day and we recorded and annotated everything else, so whilst I’ll provide an overview here, detailed breakdowns of everything relevant to PTP study will be supplied separately, as and when time and my coursework volume allows.
Of particular note is the information on preceptorship qualification, delivered by Sophie Blackman of SCST and Boston Scientific. I collared her after the event proper, and she kindly agreed to provide the literature pertaining to this, so as soon as it’s available, I’ll add it for you all to have a mosey over. It seems like a great opportunity for newly- qualified practitioners to become super confident in all aspects of their job, so I highly recommend that you read the contents when they’re available.
Dr Patricia Oakley of King’s College outlined the plans for a new variety of health clinic: the centre that isn’t home and isn’t a hospital, but the “place in the middle”. These will be networked, multidisciplinary centres, featuring social workers, scientists, psychiatrists, GP’s, etc, so cardiac physiologists will most likely be a necessity in their implementation. The whole session really drove home the emerging importance of this profession, but also the requirement of all of us, student and qualified, to ensure that the cardiac physiologist is recognised as being at the forefront of innovation so as not to be overlooked. It was mentioned more than once, that if we don’t put ourselves forward for emerging structures, someone else will.
Dr Oakley told of the need to reduce treatment variability by region. Her example was the treatment of amputation as a result of diabetes; Devon has, by far, the highest number of below-hip amputations when compared with the rest of the UK, due to the fact that the majority of Devonian surgeons trained under a surgeon who has a penchant for this level of removal. The advent of these networked clinics will reduce this level of variability and promote consistency across the home nations.
The president of the AHCS, Dr Brendan Cooper delivered the final talk of the day, discussing the future role of the healthcare scientist in wider healthcare and medicine, and the need for physiologist prescribing. I’ll provide a detailed breakdown of this talk next, and shall hopefully post it in this coming week.
The Student Physiologist 