Geriatric clinical fellow (ST3+) Vascular Surgery

St. George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the regional specialist care provider for south west London, Surrey and beyond. The trust provides a high quality, comprehensive range of health services from leading edge tertiary and trauma care to community services. With national and regional referrals added to our local 3.5m catchment, we serve a population of around 5m.

The postholder will work for the vascular geriatrics consultant delivering comprehensive geriatric assessment to older patients undergoing vascular surgery. The postholder will undertake pre-operative assessments on the ward and in clinic, be involved in shared decision making and optimising patients for surgery and post-operative management on the ward. The fellow will participate in board rounds, ward rounds – jointly with vascular and independently - and multi-disciplinary team meetings. There may be an option of contributing to the on call rota covering acute medicine and ward cover on calls. The postholder will also be part of the senior health referral rota, reviewing patients under other specialties.

Main duties of the job:

• To demonstrate excellent communication skills, working collaboratively and constructively with the vascular team.
• Working closely with the vascular team to provide medical input, frailty assessments and comprehensive geriatric assessments primarily for patients over 65 years but also will need to be comfortable providing care to younger patients.
• To provide senior medical support, teaching and mentoring to the vascular team.
• To attend board rounds to ensure consistent geriatric presence and adequate handover.
• To attend vascular POPS clinic and contribute to vascular MDT meetings.
• To deliver teaching both informally in board rounds and on ward rounds and formally in vascular meetings.
• To work closely with our multi-disciplinary team to facilitate discharge planning and support them in providing care to complex older patients.
• To work closely with the geriatric consultant to embed the peri-operative service and to help with data collection/ QIP/ service development.
• To take responsibility for the reviews and advice given and communicating this effectively while overall responsibility for patient care remains under the vascular surgical team.
• Be part of the senior health referrals rota, providing senior health input into patients under other medical and surgical specialties.

Person specification:

• Qualifications: MBBS or equivalent, MRCP, BSc, MSc/ MA.
• Experience: Comprehensive clinical experience in geriatrics and acute general internal medicine +/- in peri-operative medicine.
• Knowledge and skills: Good medical knowledge and clinical skills, ALS Certificate.
• Personality: Good written and oral communication skills, ability to manage own workload and take initiative, ability to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, ability to be flexible and to manage reasonable workload that can quickly change, demonstrates experience in leadership.
• Audit and quality improvement: Understands the principles of audit and quality improvement, experience in designing and leading quality improvement, evidence of quality improvement work resulting in sustained change.
• Teaching: Experience in teaching undergraduates, post graduates and allied healthcare professionals, development of a formal teaching programme.
• Research: Understanding of the principles and clinical applications of clinical research, evidence of involvement in original research.
• Management: Excellent organisational skills, experience of supervision of more junior trainees, experience in clinical risk management and governance processes.
• Other Requirements: Full GMC registration and hold a license to practise, evidence of understanding of and adherence to the principles of Good Medical Practice set out by the General Medical Council.

We expect all our staff to share the values that are important to the trust – being excellent, kind, responsible and respectful – and behave in a way that reflects these.