Society for Acute Medicine
9 Queen Street
Edinburgh
EH2 1JQ
Phone: 0131 247 3634
Email:
Dear Trainees,
Just a brief newsletter this time, to keep you updated about a few important issues – and to remind you about the impending SAM conference in Edinburgh.
New SAM website
By now you have hopefully all visited the new SAM website – which can be found at the usual address ( The Training and Education section has been written with you in mind, to help answer any questions you might have about training matters. We would value your feedback about these pages, and are especially keen to hear from you if you feel there are additional areas needing to be covered.
Of particular interest to some of you will be the list of published guidelines relevant to Acute Medicine, compiled for us by one of the Wessex Acute Medicine registrars, Kate Akester, ( You will see that the guidelines are grouped according to Acute Medicine curricular subheadings, which makes the list a useful revision resource for the specialty certificate exam. Many thanks to Kate for her hard work in producing this list.
The more technologically advanced among you will also be delighted to hear that the Society now also has its own Facebook page (just log in to Facebook and search for “Society for Acute Medicine”).Thisis an excellent way of keeping up to date with the latest SAM news, so please use it as much as you can.
Specialist skills
Over the next few months we will be collecting information about specialist skill training in Acute Medicine across all deaneries. We want to know which skills are available to trainees in which locations, and we want to hear from trainees about their positive or negative experiences. We’ll be asking some of you to help us collect this data, so that we can build up a clear picture of specialist skill training in the UK – the ultimate aim being to improve access to and training in certain skills, thus benefitting Acute Medicine training programmes in the future. Keep an eye on the Specialist Skills pages of the website for more information.
Specialty Certificate Exam (SCE)
The date for the first Acute Medicine SCE ( is 24th November 2010. Registration has now opened and will remain open until the 27th of September. You can apply to sit the exam online through this website; go to for full details of this process. Don’t forget that you will also need to register with Pearson Vue, the company which organizes the testing centres.
SAM Edinburgh
The 4th International SAM Conference takes place at the EICC in Edinburgh on Thursday 7th and Friday 8th October this year. We are looking forward to seeing many of you there! If you have not yet booked your place, there is still time to register – go to The programme is available to view at
Those of you who have already looked at a copy of the programme might have noticed the absence of a trainee session. It is happening though!
The trainee session will take place as a parallel session on Friday 8th October between 0900 and 1040 hours. The programme is as follows
0900-0925: Dr Kerri Baker, Acute Medicine SpR, RCPE Trainee Representative: The politics of medical training
0925-0950: Dr Chris Dimopolous, Acute Medicine Consultant, Scarborough, Managing the Acute Medicine Unit
0950-1040: Specialist Skills
-Tim Bonnici & Alice Miller, SAM Trainee Representatives: What you need to know about Specialist Skills
-Dr Carla Cadiz, Acute Medicine Registrar: Ultrasound as a Specialist Skill
-Dr Jane Atkinson, Acute Medicine Registrar: Medical education as a Specialist Skill
-Dr David Stanton, Acute Medicine Registrar: Management as a Specialist Skill
This session is an opportunity for trainees to find out about the training experiences of their colleagues. Our speakers have inspirational stories to tell, from which we can all learn. There will be plenty of time for questions as well.
In place of the traditional lecture theatre Q&A session, we will also be running an advice and feedback clinic between 1345 and 1430 hours on the Friday afternoon; if you have any questions or points to raise on training issues please come and talk to us then. We hope this new format will allow people to ask their questions in a slightly less public forum, and to get detailed and personalised advice where it is needed.
That’s all for now. See you in Edinburgh!
Alice Miller ()
Tim Bonnici ()