Rheumatology taster days

Overview

Taking place across England, Scotland and Wales, introducing medical students, junior doctors and AHPs to a career in rheumatology.

What's a rheumatology taster day?

Changes to medical school curricula and postgraduate training have resulted in medical students, junior doctors and allied healthcare professionals having limited exposure to rheumatology.

Because of this, we've organised a series of taster days across the UK, giving participants an understanding of what it's like to work in rheumatology, opportunities to network with rheumatologists, GPs and other MDT members, and to meet rheumatology patients.

Dates for your diary

4 November – London, England BOOK

8 November – Exeter, England BOOK

13 November – Pontyclun, Wales BOOK

16 November – Dundee, Scotland BOOK

30 November – Newcastle, England BOOK

NB: taster days are not revision sessions or education days

Would you like to host a taster day in your area? Take a look below for more details on how to organise your own rheumatology taster day.

Running a taster day

How we can help you

You’ll be working with our Events Executive Grace Potthurst and/or Devolved Nations Liaison Officer Lauren Bennie. They'll talk you through the process of setting up a taster day and answer any questions you have. We'll cover the costs of the venue, catering and any travel expenses for speakers and facilitators.

If you want to talk to our convenor Dr Martin Lee about how to develop the best programme, please email him on martinlee@doctors.org.uk.

Pick a date and venue

Put together a shortlist of venues you like; then speak to us and we'll help you decide on the most suitable venue. Once you've decided on one, we'll manage the booking and confirm requirements, including accessibility and catering.

Invite the speakers

When you've invited your speakers, send us a list with contact information and we'll send a formal invitation and follow up with instructions about the day. We'll also manage any travel, accommodation and expense claims for their attendance.

Invite your attendees

We’re targeting medical students, junior doctors and allied health professionals with these taster days. At our inaugural event in Newcastle, attendees included fourth and fifth year medical students, more junior medical students, foundation programme, trust grade and core medical trainee doctors.

Promotion

We’ll help you promote the event through our digital channels (website, social media etc), but as a local event to your region or Devolved Nation, it’s important that you reach out to your local networks and use contacts from local academic institutions to stimulate interest.

Evaluation

We’ll work with you to design and send out a survey to find out if the day had an impact on career decisions; the outcomes can be used as learnings for future events.

Designing a programme

Programmes should be adapted to fit your local area and speakers; our pilot event showed attendees valued meeting patients, enthusiastic speakers, being able to ask questions and get career advice and the practical nature of sessions.

Whether you already know who you want your speakers to be or want to build the programme first, think about designing something that will have points of interest for all of the audiences you're inviting.

We suggest a morning of short information sessions followed by an afternoon of workshops based around meeting and interacting with patients facilitated by faculty members.

Attendees can be grouped according to their clinical experience so the facilitator can tailor the workshop to them.

Sample programme

10.00-10.30	Arrivals and coffee
10.30-10.50	The consultant rheumatologist's job plan
10.50-11.10	The past, present and future of rheumatology
11.10-11.30	How to successfully apply to ST training
11.30-12.00	Questions and coffee
12.00-12.20	From bench to bedside: can immunology be interesting?
12:20-12:40	A career in academia: a trainees perspective
12.40-13.00	An overview of rheumatology conditions
13.00-14.00	Lunch and networking
14.00-14.30	Breakout session 1: multisystem disease - is the rheumatologist the last true generalist (patient perspective)
14.30-15.00	Breakout session 2: the use of ultrasound in rheumatology
15.00-15.15	Coffee break
15.15-15.45	Breakout session 3: paediatric and adolescent rheumatology
15.45-16.15	Breakout session 4: medication in rheumatology
16.15-16.30	Summary and questions

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