FEATURED SURGICAL SOCIETY
Interview with John Mason, CUSS President
2010/11 Cardiff University Surgical Society Committee
President John Mason
Vice President Ceri Evans
Secretary Catherine Botting
Treasurer Elizabeth Phillips
Academic Rep Daniel Stevens
Clinical Reps Nadia Randazzo & Laura Matytsina
Pre-Clinical Reps Chantelle Rizan & Toby James (Pre-clinical reps); Holly Morgan; Sophie Pickles and Vitaliy Androshchuk
How did you first become involved with CUSS?
I first became involved with CUSS following its start up in 2008. Initially I was just a regular attendee of events, although in 2009 my enthusiasm was spotted and I was invited to join the committee as a clinical representative (and later on, ASiT rep). Following this, I took over as President of CUSS for 2010/11.
My involvement on the committee aside, I would encourage any medical student with an interest in surgery to become involved with their local surgical societies. The benefits of this can add to your CV and MTAS forms, and it is probably the most basic way to demonstrate an active interest in surgery.
When did you first know you wanted to be a surgeon?
I’m afraid I don’t have a single moment of inspiration or childhood love of playing Operation to explain my career aspirations. In fact, before medical school I did a BSc in biochemistry, in which I undertook a 3rd year project and subsequent summer studentship in dermatology – and this became my initial speciality of interest! However, as I progressed through the years at medical school, I became more and more interested in the practical side of medicine, which then developed into an interest in surgery, especially GI surgery. I now have a strong interest in upper GI oncology, which I would like to develop into an academic career in general surgery. In summary, a fistulated journey from the skin to the oesophagus (I searched PubMed, no other case reports yet!)
How did you become involved with ASiT?
I stumbled upon the ASiT website by accident whilst looking for information on surgical careers. I didn’t join up immediately, but instead thought I would use a bit of intuition and ask a few trainees if they had heard of the organisation, and whether or not it was any good. Luckily for this interview, ASiT received gleaming reviews, so with this reassurance, I joined! Following this, I was quickly contacted by Jessica Johnson, who was ASiT student representative at the time. From here I became the Cardiff ASiT representative.
The benefits of having an ASiT rep on the CUSS committee, is the ability to use the society as a body to disseminate ASiT-related information to the rest of our 400+ membership base. Last year, CUSS advertised the ASiT /Elsevier Surgical Elective Prize, which we are proud to say was won by a student studying at Cardiff. Similarly, we are now advertising the 2011 ASiT Conference in Sheffield, and hope that Cardiff will be represented at this event.
I will be stepping down as the Cardiff ASiT rep in the new-year. Another member of the CUSS committee, Chantelle Rizan, will be taking over and she has plans to expand ASiT student involvement in Cardiff.
How has CUSS influenced Surgical Education at Cardiff?
Surgery receives significantly less dedicated curriculum time when compared to medical specialities. This fact seems to be mirrored at most other UK medical schools. CUSS has risen to this observation and has become a strong advocate and source of additional surgical teaching at Cardiff. Since last year, members of the committee have participated in peer-led anatomy revision sessions for pre-clinical medical students. These sessions take place in the dissection room at Cardiff and are aimed at addressing recent curriculum changes in the way that anatomy is taught, whereby more traditional methods of anatomy teaching, such as cadaveric dissection, have been replaced in preference for a partly prosection-based course.
For clinical medical students that are about to sit their intermediate or final MB, CUSS now hosts a Surgical Systems Revision course. This course is free for members and consists of a series of evening lectures delivered by consultant surgeons, covering surgical theory for written examinations as well as practical examination technique for OSCEs. Whilst the course has been tailor made to Cardiff’s learning outcomes, it also has a strong emphasis on the practical surgical knowledge that is required to work as a FY1 in surgery.
Finally, the feather in our cap is our journal club. This fortnightly club involves students selecting an article from the medical literature that they have found interesting and then discussing the articles main points in an informal group discussion. The end result being letter to the editor of the journal outlining the points raised during the meeting. Our success rate on subsequent publication is approximately 60%, and published letters often come with a PubMed ID meaning that they count on MTAS forms as a publication.
A combination of these events means that our members consider the society as a valuable adjunct to course-based surgical teaching.
What has been CUSS’s greatest achievement to date?
Our greatest achievement has to be our fast and ongoing growth and expansion since the society was started in 2008. In just 2 years, CUSS is now one of the largest student societies in Cardiff University. Despite struggling to secure funding for events in the early days, we now have a wide range of sponsors and affiliations enabling us to deliver an impressive portfolio of events that target students at the various stages of medical school. We are now in a position whereby our annual events are anticipated in advance by our membership base.
What are CUSS’s goals in the coming year?
Our goals for the new-year include setting up a 2-tiered surgical skills programme. This will involve separate workshops for pre-clinical and clinical medical students, allowing different levels of skill to be targeted. Workshops for pre-clinical students will involve basic surgical skills such as knot tying and suturing, whilst workshops for clinical students may comprise of more technical skills such as tendon repair and wound debridement. It is hoped that this format will widen access to our members and will offer a platform on which students can learn a skill in the pre-clinical years and then develop this skill by attending subsequent workshops in the following years. Teaching will be delivered by core trainees in surgery, and we are proud to be able to acknowledge their involvement with accredited letters from the medical school sub-Dean.
