Induction and Roles

This is a split job - You do 2 months of Medical Microbiology and 2 months of Infectious Diseases.

This is a  job with a lot of educational opportunities around the area of Microbiology. You are the only FY2 and there is very good support from Registrars and Consultants. You spend most of the 2 months in RIE and 1 to 2 weeks in WGH. You could also spend some time in the Micro Lab in the RIE for more exposure.

General Pattern of Work

This is a largely Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm job with one set of HAN nights in Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. You are mainly based in the Microbiology Registrar’s room.

In RIE it is located in the main laboratory area on 2nd Floor. (You will need to obtain access to the area with your ID card.)

In WGH it is located one floor below Ward 41.

You will be given access and shown how to use the APEX for the full Microbiology results.

There is a daily ITU Micro round led by a Microbiology Consultant around 2pm. The service is to provide advice and escalation plan according to latest Microbiology results and clinical progress.

During your time covering ITU  your main role in the morning will be updating the ITU ward round notes, noting down any new culture and sensitivities. It is important to also flag up to the consultant doing the ITU round any multi-drug resistant organisms. You will attend the ITU round and write down clinical progress, current antibiotics regime, max temperature etc.

Occasionally in the morning you will also have the opportunity to make phone calls to the ward with preliminary culture results and advise on antibiotic regimens following discussion with the registrars.

You will also have weeks dedicated to infection consult there is a twice weekly Infection Round (Tues and Thurs). These patients would have been identified by the Duty Registrars/Consultants throughout the week.

Generally, the patients seen in the Infection Round are those presenting with Staph aureus bacteraemia, C. diff and complex infections.

Throughout the week there are several video-conference sessions with other hospitals across Scotland. These sessions include tutorials, infection MDT and journal club and are very educational.

If you are more interested in the laboratory aspect, you can also spend some time in the lab, learning the process involved such as Gram staining, Lancefield Grouping, test for Beta-lactamase etc.

Whilst in the post for 2 months, you will be expected to complete 3 tasks:

Topic presentations on

Medically important bacteria and/or empirical management of common infections

Cleanliness Champion module (if not done before)

One Quality Improvement/audit project and presentation at Journal club.

Tinetabling

Monday

AM - Monday morning meeting / PM - ITU round

Tuesday

AM - Infection Round / PM - ITU round

Wednesday

AM - Trainee Tutorial / PM - ITU round

Thursday

AM - Infection round / PM - Infection MDT, ITU round

Friday

AM - Journal Club / PM - ITU round