What is a Surgical Skills Training Network?

A Surgical Skills Training Network is a collection of hospitals, including principal referral hospital(s), major metropolitan hospital(s) and major non-metropolitan/rural district hospital(s) designed to provide Junior Medical Officers (JMOs) wishing to apply to SET with a diverse range of surgical, critical care, and emergency medicine experiences. There are six training networks in NSW:

• Eastern and Greater Southern Surgical Skills Training Network
• Hunter New England Surgical Skills Training Network
• Northern Surgical Skills Training Network
• Southern Surgical Skills Training Network
• Sydney South West Surgical Skills Training Network
• Sydney West Surgical Skills Training Network

To support surgical education and training, each network has:

• a Network Director of Training (NDoT),
• an Education Support Officer (ESO) to assist the NDoT in the organisation and administration of the Network Training Program,
• a Site Director of Training (SDoT) at each hospital within the network; and
• infrastructure (including telecommunications infrastructure), office space and teaching resources to enable delivery of network services to all sites.

Am I a Surgical Skills Trainee?

You are a Surgical Skills Trainee if you have an interest in a career in surgery and are:

• an undergraduate medical student;
• an intern, or Post Graduate Year 1 (PGY1);
• a resident, or PGY2;
• a member of the PGY3+ cohort who currently is a Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ (RACS) registered basic surgical trainee, and has not been accepted onto a SET program; or
• a member of the PGY3+ cohort who currently is not a RACS’ registered basic surgical trainee, and has not been accepted onto a SET program

How do I apply to a Surgical Skills Training Network?

Recruitment to the Surgical Skills Training Networks is managed as part of the JMO recruitment process. All Surgical Skills Training Network jobs for the 2021 Clinical Year will be advertised on the NSW Health eRecruit website: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jmo/Pages/default.aspx

Information on changes to recruitment processes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic can be found at: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jmo/Pages/covid-19-update-jmo-campaign.aspx

Surgical Skills Network Terms for the 2021 Clinical Year and Network staff contact details can be found here.

Clinical Surgical Training Council (CSTC) Trainee Sub-Committee (TSC)

Applications are closed for membership to the 2020 CSTC Trainee Subcommittee.

The NSW CSTC Trainee Subcommittee provides a forum to raise issues affecting the education and training of surgical aspirants, and an avenue for these issues to be raised with the CSTC. Members of the Trainee Subcommittee will participate in education based projects according to priorities articulated at the Surgical Skills Training Network Planning Day (31.5.19) and approved by the CSTC.

The 2019 - 2020 priority projects are:

• The Golden Scalpel Games Student Edition
• Cross-Network Subspecialty Teaching
• Review of resources for the Surgical Science Intensive Course

The CSTC Trainee Subcommittee meets for 1.5 hours four times a year, held prior to the CSTC meetings.  Meetings are held in the evenings from 6:30pm to 7:30pm via zoom/teleconference. Subcommittee members will also be expected to participate in the Surgical Skills Training Network Planning Workshop, via Zoom, on the 31 July 2020 (2:00pm - 5:00pm).

CSTC Trainee Subcommittee membership is a voluntary position appointed for a period of 2 years. To remain an active member of the subcommittee, members will be required to attend at least 60% of meetings (in person or by teleconference) each year.

Clinical Surgical State Training Council Members