Trainer Supports for Trainees in Difficulty
Think your trainee may have a wellbeing issue?
When should you advise your trainee to access the wellbeing support services available?
If following discussions with your trainee that they advise any of the following:
- They’re feeling overwhelmed, isolated, stressed, or unsure of your abilities.
- If their facing a work-related challenge or experiencing difficulty making clinical decisions.
- When there’s a personal challenge such as health concerns, bereavement, or financial stress arise.
- Following an adverse incident or complaint.
- They have required advice or signposts to supports
You might at this stage consider signposting your trainee to the Wellbeing Supports available to them as they may need support to prioritise their wellbeing.
The Health & Well-Being of our Trainees is hugely important to us.
RCSI as your Post graduate Training body, is always striving to understand by means of feedback and engagement, how we can best support trainees. The provision of support and referral pathways for trainees, and/or, trainers who are supporting trainees that are struggling, due to reasons related to health and wellbeing and may be impacting their ability to lead a fulfilling and sustainable career is vitally important for us.
Early identification and prevention of such issues through the promotion, support and education of Health and Wellbeing strategies is key during what is often considered a busy but rewarding time of your career pathway.
For more information, please click on the relevant topics in the below image.
Policy on flexible working
The RCSI is committed to supporting trainees who wish to train Flexibly for periods of time during their training journey. As a trainer this can present challenges on how to support your trainee to ensure they continue to achieve the training objectives.
The RCSI has developed a comprehensive policy designed to support trainees who would like to consider working flexibly or less than full time as it may be known. The College would consider all training posts have the potential to for flexible training.
The RCSI policy on this matter can be found here
National Supernumerary Flexible Training Scheme
Alongside the RCSI policy the HSE/NDTP have a National Supernumerary Flexible Training Scheme is open to Trainees at all levels of training who have successfully completed their first year of training. The scheme provides a number of funded posts that allows trainees to continue their training flexibly and provides the hospital/clinical site with the funding to support this post.
Full details of this HSE policy can be found at HSE/NDTP National Supernumerary Flexible Training Scheme . If you have any queries on this matter or would like to discuss any aspects of flexible training and how this might impact you as a trainer please contact the Specialty Training Programme Director or the Specialty Administrator
| Specialty | Contact name | Email address |
| Operations Manager – Core Training & Education Programmes | Jane Cunningham | corest@rcsi.ie |
| Operations Manager Higher Specialist Training | Niamh Carroll | niamhcarroll@rcsi.ie |
| Cardio Thoracic Surgery | Teresa Byrne | teresabyrne@rcsi.ie |
| General Surgery | Aoife Murphy | aoifeamurphy@rcsi.ie |
| Neuro Surgery | Teresa Byrne | teresabyrne@rcsi.ie |
| Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery | Roisin Scally | roisinscally@rcsi.ie |
| Otolaryngology | Jackie Brown | jackiebrowne@rcsi.ie |
| Paediatric Surgery | Roisin Scally | roisinscally@rcsi.ie |
| Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery | Roisin Scally | roisinscally@rcsi.ie |
| Trauma and Orthopaedics | Laura Martin | lauramartin@rcsi.ie |
| Urology | Teresa Byrne | teresabyrne@rcsi.ie |
| Vascular Surgery | Jackie Browne | jackiebrowne@rcsi.ie |
Useful contacts
If you have any questions regarding training, including placements, dates for courses, queries around flexible training or any of the RCSI policies that relate to both core and higher surgical training please feel free to contact us.