Senior Clinical Fellow in Acute Medicine

Acute Medicine is one of the fastest growing and exciting areas in hospital medicine, providing exposure and training in clinical skills and knowledge across the broad range of medical specialities.

This post includes regular training in our award-winning Ambulatory Emergency Care unit, working on the Acute Assessment Unit and participating in the acute medical takes. You will work as part of a dynamic team of Consultants, Acute Medicine Specialist Registrars, GP, IMT, ACCS and Foundation trainees. You will have an educational supervisor and will be encouraged to grow as a clinician with participation in mortality reviews, QIPs, ongoing departmental educational activities and attend the relevant trust-wide medical registrar teaching sessions. You will have the opportunity to participate in medical student teaching and SIM faculty membership, and be encouraged to develop your own interests within the department.

The postholder will work across the following 3 areas as outlined in the work schedule:

- the Acute Assessment Unit (AAU), Mary Seacole North and South wards
- the Acute Medical Take
- the Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit (AEC) to facilitate same day emergency care

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

Acute Assessment Unit (AAU)

This is a 34-bed unit based across two adjacent wards (Mary Seacole North and Mary Seacole South). This is staffed by 2 Consultants, a registrar, 2-4 SHOs and 2-3 FY1s with daily Consultant led ward rounds.

Wider AMU staffing includes a dedicated and highly trained nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and MDT team, a frailty team, pharmacy and a full complement of support staff.

There are full cardiac monitoring facilities and isolation facilities, and patients may receive non-invasive ventilatory support on the AAU as well as chest drains, management of level 0 and level 1 patients and a close working relationship with the intensive care, cardiology, respiratory and gastroenterology teams who all in reach to AAU regularly.

Ambulatory Emergency Care (AEC)

The award-winning Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit is staffed by a dedicated team of senior and junior doctors and Advanced Clinical Practitioners who see acutely unwell patients, in an outpatient same day emergency care setting, providing an alternative to admission for many patients.

The ambulatory care unit has a dedicated Consultant and Senior Nurse who supervise the diagnosis, management and treatment of patients on the unit and provide teaching and support for the many procedures (chest drains, ascitic drains, lumbar punctures, infusions and diagnostic imaging) which take place there.

Acute Medical Take

This is staffed by 1 SpR, 2 SHOs and 1 FY1. There is an average intake of 30 patients over 24 hours. During the day, there is a continuous consultant post take ward round providing the opportunity for immediate feedback and learning. Overnight, Consultant advice is available by telephone, and patients are reviewed on the morning post take ward round.

Undergraduate medical teaching (10% of post)

The post-holder’s teaching responsibilities are
- to deliver teaching within the medical specialties to undergraduate medical students at the Whittington campus of UCL Medical School (supported by curriculum leads),
- organise and take part in OSCE, preparation and induction for students
- become a mentor or personal tutor for students
- to support the development of teaching skills.

The post-holder will be teaching medical specialities and will report to module leads in year 4, 5 and 6. Module A consists of Acute medicine, Cardiology and Respiratory Medicine. There will be opportunities to develop as a teacher and educator. As an example, a recent fellow has spent time developing paediatric simulation teaching for the iBSc and year 5 UCL students and has written tutor guides for those who provide undergraduate teaching across specialties.

The post-holder will need to be flexible in their approach as the teaching and clinical commitments may vary throughout the year based on the students’ academic term timetable. The post-holder must have some experience at providing pastoral care for peers and/or students thus far in their career.

The post-holder will be expected to b