What is a Surgical Network?

A Surgical 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 Network?

Recruitment to the Surgical Networks is managed as part of the JMO recruitment process. All Surgical Skills Network jobs will be listed from late July on the NSW Health eRecruit website.

Clinical Surgical Training Council (CSTC) Trainee Sub-Committee

The NSW CSTC Trainee Sub Committee 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. A major project for this group will be coordination of the annual Golden Scalpel Games competition, including supervision and assessment of medical students.

The Committee meets for 1.5 hours four times a year (once a month until November). Meetings are held in the evenings from 6:00pm to 7:30pm at HETI in the Medical Portfolio, Building 12, Gladesville Hospital or via teleconference.

This is a voluntary position appointed for a period of 2 years. To remain an active member of the sub-committee, members or their delegates will be required to attend at least 60% of meetings (in person or by teleconference) each year.

Clinical Surgical State Training Council Members