Manchester FY1 Tiffany Berrington visited Connecticut for an eight-week neurosurgery elective

Although I enjoyed the neuroscience semester more than any other during my pre-clinical years it wasn’t until my fourth year of medical school that I decided on a career in neurosurgery.

Having completed two neurosurgical placements in the UK I was keen to see how things were done ‘across the pond’ and applied for an elective at Yale-New Haven Hospital during my fifth year.

Delegates at this year’s ASiT annual meeting were treated to a pre-conference course with a difference, writes Dr Michelle Ting

 ASiT 2012’s Surgical Art class was distinct from the usual brand of courses on offer at surgical conferences; this was a niche event, attracting a healthy cohort of 18 delegates. The idea for the session came from ASiT President Goldie Khera, who wanted to promote the concept of art in medicine and equip delegates with a more specialist skill set.

John Scollay reports on the training opportunities in paediatric surgery for the general surgeon

 The term General Surgery of Childhood (GSC) refers to a number of surgical procedures performed on children often on a day-case basis (see box). Traditionally, both paediatric surgeons and general surgeons have performed GSC with general surgeons making a substantial contribution to this workload. Figures from the NHS in England show that in 2004-2005 the overall number of paediatric surgical admissions was very evenly split between District General Hospitals (DGHs) and tertiary centres.¹

Specialty trainee Andrea Warwick on why she used annual leave to work for a hernia charity in Ghana

 Several minutes passed waiting for the generator to kick in and for light to return to the operating theatre when a mobile phone was held above the operative field. I politely declined the kind offer of the light from the phone and continued to wait. I thought I would never again complain about the brightness of the lights in the NHS! The light eventually came on, and with it the air conditioning thankfully returned. The temperature dropped from unbearable to exceptionally hot. I attempted to re-commence the operation to find the scissors still did not cut.