I headed to Adelaide in early May for the Developing a Career and Skills in Academic Surgery Course (DCAS). This was a one-day program with advice and skills for medical students through to consultants. Presenters were evenly split between international and local speakers. I was fortunate to receive a complementary registration for this event.
The morning session started early with a pitch aimed at encouraging all surgeons to be involved in research as well as local and international speakers talking on the various types of research that surgeons could be involved in – clinical, educational, simulation and translational research. The morning session also featured an interesting talk by a lead researcher from the team investigating de-regulation of junior physician duty hours in the US. They found that junior doctors were more satisfied with de-regulation as it allowed them to provide continuity of care and have greater involvement in patient outcomes.
While the pre-lunch session was meant to be about the various phases of producing research output, each of the speakers talked about their road from student to researcher in their respective field. The afternoon session detailed pathways into research including Masters by Coursework and Research and the benefits and drawbacks of completing further training internationally. The keynote speaker was Dr Mary Hawn, Stanford Medicine Professor of Surgery. She spoke of her path to her current role including setbacks and fitting in child rearing.
I was fortunate to meet up with friends presenting at the RACS conference, enjoyed a lovely dinner with them and then attended their presentation the following day.
I came away thinking, “There aren’t too many women here” and “This isn’t for me”. But I also left with a lovely bottle of red that I’d picked up on a day trip to the Adelaide Hills and would highly recommend Adelaide for a holiday.