Working in London / Kent, Surrey and Sussex

Placements

The school training centres include large specialist teaching hospitals and also generalist Departments.  The allocation of trainees to placements is run similarly to the national placement scheme with preferences, training needs and rankings at appointment taken into account.

Potential placements are all shown and all would be happy to show applicants around and provide advice on where the best placement within Thames would be for you (see below for contacts).

Run-through following ST1 in Thames

In London and the South East there is a huge cohort of ST2-5 (SpR) posts, all historically baded 1b.  There are strong links with academic pathology and excellent teaching hospitals as well as thriving attractive general hospitals.  There is an integrated approach within training programmes (rotations) managed by the Specialty Training Committee, Chaired by Dr Martin Young.

Following national recruitment into ST1, the matching to training programmes for ST2-5 is based on trainee preference, training needs and rankings at ST1 appointment.

There are 7 training programmes (rotations) which are geographically based to minimise travelling:  These are:

South East London	North East London
South West London	North West London
South East London and Kent	North Central
South Coast

• To arrange an attachment to a lab,
• For a full list of contacts in any training programme,
• For details of the matching scheme for placements,
• To be put in contact with current trainees and
• For any other queries….

Please contact Histopathology@londondeanery.ac.uk

Block Teaching

To ensure that the most important building blocks of the specialty are acquired quickly, in the first year we provide several block teaching weeks.

The induction week is held in August with several other training schools in the South of England and the faculty includes contributions from all those schools and at this you will have a chance to meet your cohort, make some new friends and hopefully life-long contacts in the specialty.

Thames if very fortunate in having two Cytology training schools with great experience in introducing the basics of Cytology.  A Cytology training week is included early in the first year.  There are opportunities and facilities in both Northwick Park and Guildford Training Schools for dedicated training sessions in gynaecological and non-gynaecological cytology including Liquid Based Cytology and fine needle aspiration.

Day release teaching

Not happy with the block teaching weeks alone, the Thames School also runs a day release programme when the Year 1 run-through trainees come together in small groups for informal teaching at the training centres including microscope sessions which allow you to see exactly what the teacher is describing. 

Autopsy experience

The School provides all new recruits with an autopsy course to introduce the basics of post mortem practice, Health & Safety in the Mortuary and England's unique Coroner's system, as well as teaching you in the beautiful and historic surroundings of the Gorndon Pathology museum at Guy's.

Autopsy experience is unique to our specialty and, as well as providing privileged insights into human disease, also presents some interesting challenges.  In Thames we have been pro-active in addressing these issues.  To do this we have utilised the resources of the school as a whole, particularly outside London. The 'joined-up thinking' of the school approach allows us to boost autopsy training with secondments or 'a week in the country' for all Thames Year 1 trainees who need this extra support.