Introduction
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust Renal and Transplant Medicine Visiting Professional Programme is designed to provide international visiting professionals with the opportunity to experience and learn from our highly acclaimed nephrology and transplant service. The programme offers exclusive insight into general and subspecialised nephrology and one of the biggest transplant programmes in Europe.
Our Visiting Professional Programme is a unique development experience that allows visitors to work and observe alongside our renowned faculty in nephrology with interests in glomerulonephritis and vasculitis, lupus nephritis, tubular pathologies, retroperitoneal fibrosis, home haemodialysis (and many more) as well as access to complex transplantation such as our antibody incompatible transplant programme.
We are dedicated to broadening international professionals’ clinical expertise and enabling them to learn new skills that can be transferred back to their work place.
Programme aims
The programme is aimed at those who wish to extend their expertise in nephrology and transplantation and who wish to gain an understanding of the way this is practiced and organised within the NHS.
The programme aims to include:
- Direct experience and exposure of ward rounds and clinics. There are several clinics, such as advanced kidney care (low clearance), one-stop chronic kidney disease (CKD), failing transplant, living donor assessments, general nephrology, renal rehabilitation, surgical assessment and post-transplant. Visitors ‘access to these clinics will vary depending on the duration of their programme and their own learning objectives.
- The opportunity to be involved in our clinical research meetings.
- Opportunities to attend and contribute in our multidisciplinary team meetings (MDM), including general nephrology, living donor, antibody incompatibility, vascular access, biopsy meetings, pancreas transplant and radiology MDMs.
- Regular internal teaching meetings and the possibility for visitors to lead undergraduate teaching sessions
- The chance to observe consultant-led practical procedures such as native and transplant kidney biopsies and tunnelled line insertions.
- Learning experiences of adult complex cases in nephrology and transplantation.
- Insight into one of the biggest transplant programme in Europe and one of the largest teaching hospitals in nephrology in the UK.
Individual weekly timetables will be created depending on each visiting professional’s requirements.
A Certificate of Attendance will be awarded to visitors upon the end of their programme.
Format
The renal and transplantation programme is delivered within the hospital workplace and it has been designed by our expert clinical leads to educate visitors in a range of complex cases through including exposure to clinics, cutting edge procedures and technologies, and internal education activities such as research meetings.
The programme allows visitors to be fully integrated within the day to day service of our teams. We will also align visitors with supervisors from within the clinical team who will provide one to one support and aim to ensure that all of the learning and development needs and expectations are met.
Who can apply
This programme is intended for non U.K. advanced trainee clinicians, registrars and consultants. This is designed for physicians although exposure to surgical expertise through our close relationship to transplant surgery can be arranged.
Visitors have the choice of applying for a practical attachment or observership programme. Those wishing to apply for a practical attachment must have GMC registration. You can apply for GMC registration directly through the main GMC website, alternatively The Royal College of Physicians run a medical training initiative which facilitates GMC registration and provides sponsorship for a Tier 5 visa. You can find out more about their Medical Training Initiative by visiting their website.
Renal and Transplantation service
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust’s Renal Service is a centre of excellence for the treatment of kidney disease offering a diverse range of clinical services within our hospital sites and outreach services in South East London and Kent. We have been leaders in kidney care since our renal service was established in the 1970’s.
We provide treatment at all stages of the patient pathway with our service including a nephrology department, one of the UK’s largest haemodialysis programmes, nocturnal home haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and satellite dialysis units, and kidney and pancreas transplantation. We are one of only seven places offering pancreas transplantation in the UK.
We are a regional centre for kidney transplantation and a supra-regional centre for kidney and pancreas transplantation and for blood group and HLA incompatible transplantation. We were the first centre in the UK to have living donor transplant programme and we are still home to the largest and most active living kidney donation programme in the UK.
Our expertise in kidney transplantation is recognised worldwide as we operate the largest renal transplant programme in Europe and one of the largest paediatric transplant programmes in the world, we perform 50 paediatric cases per year. We specialise in adult and paediatric complex cases, which we often receive through quaternary referrals, and we are renowned for providing transplants for many patients for whom usually, transplantation would be impossible.
Our cutting edge treatments and technologies are made possible by our faculty’s dedication to clinical research. We are allied with the MRC Centre for Transplantation which allows us to undertake research projects and remain at the forefront of clinical research.
Many of our faculty are involved with research programmes, with recent projects including vascular access, rare kidney disease and transplant innovations below.
Specialist clinics
- Glomerular
- Lupus (joint with Lupus unit)
- Vasculitis
- Sickle
- Bardet-Biedel
- RPF
- Polycystic kidney
- Pre-pregnancy
- Tubular/ metabolic stone
- Cystinosis
- Cystinuria
- Post-transplant annual review
- Post-transplant low clearance
- Post-transplant urology
- Post-transplant dermatology
Innovation
Whilst we are rightly proud of our nephrology service, one of the key strengths in innovation and research is in our transplant programme. We have arguably the most comprehensive transplant research programme in the UK. These are driven by surgeons, physicians, basic scientists and other professionals.
Our infrastructure allow us to do this:
- One of 7 Academic Health Sciences Centres in the UK
- One of 6 Biomedical Research Centres in the UK
- World class Clinical Research Facility
- Kings College London incorporated MRC Centre for Transplantation
- Strong Clinical Research Nurse team in nephrology and Transplantation
Fees
A course fee per week will be applied; this fee excludes accommodation and travelling expenses. To find out the fee amount please email vpp@gstt.nhs.uk.
Please note
Clinicians are able to offer bursaries or discounted placements on an individual basis. This is at the discretion of the Directorates of GSTT and does not affect the terms and conditions of the Visiting Professional Programme agreements.