Working in the Wessex Deanery

First year registrars share a large purpose-built room, more than 75 m², fully equipped with modern single and multi-headed microscopes.  The in-house programme of teaching for first years includes two weekly tutorials on a multi-headed microscope introducting concepts of normal and abnormal histopathology.  Southampton first years attend the National Introductory Teaching Week in Bristol at the beginning of September.  They then join the southern cluster trainees for two further weeks of block teaching which are closely matched to the first year training curriculum.  During the second part of the year there is a further block week of Cytology teaching in the Bristol Cytology Training School. 

Southampton University Hospitals have more than 1,000 beds and provide a comprehensive range of acute medical and surgical services.  The tertiary referral services include Oncology and Cardiothoracic, Neurological and Paediatric medicine and surgery. 

• We receive almost 30,000 surgical specimens each year and;
• perform more than 1,000 post mortems. 

This provides ample material for training.  There are also specialist attachments in Neuropathology and Paediatric Pathology.  The medical, scientific and support staff of the Department of Cellular Pathology are all committed to providing excellent training for junior pathologists.  We are proud of our reputation in this area and the high success rate that our junior doctors achieve in their professional examinations.

There are close working relationships between pathologists in Southampton and Portsmouth and other Wessex District General Hospitals.  Between years 2 and 5 specialist trainees spend two years in a District General Hospital and two years in the larger departments in Southampton or Portsmouth.  At present there are rotations to Bournemouth, Salisbury, Chichester and Dorchester.