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General Surgery

Rotation Information (ST3 +)

The General Surgery rotation covers the South West Peninsula Deanery and the Severn Deanery. The Severn Deanery currently coordinates the recruitment and selection of Specialist Registrars and is responsible for their training and assessment.

The regional training scheme in General Surgery is based at 14 training centres and supervises training of over 60 Specialist Registrars. The trainees rotate through different training hospitals on an annual basis starting on the first Wednesday in October. Junior trainees usually rotate on a six monthly basis but more senior trainees can remain in a subspecialty post for one year.

Training Hospitals

  • Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust
  • Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust
  • South Devon Healthcare NHS Trust
  • North Devon Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
  • Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust
  • Bristol Royal Hospital for Children
  • Bristol Royal Infirmary
  • Cheltenham General Hospital
  • Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
  • Southmead Hospital
  • Frenchay Hospital
  • Weston General Hospital
  • Royal United Hospital Bath
  • Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust

General Surgery Training

As gauged by the number of surgeons in practice in the specialty, general surgery is one of the two largest in the UK with 31% of the consultant surgical workforce.

During recent years and in common with many other disciplines there has been a trend towards further specialisation within the specialty. These are referred to as ‘Areas of Special Interest’ within general surgery as they do not have separate specialty advisory committees (SACs) within the Surgical Royal Colleges’ structure.

A shared syllabus and the ability at the completion of training to manage an unselected surgical emergency ‘take’, provide a common purpose across the specialty of general surgery at the time of writing (2007). The major areas of special interest associated with the specialty of general surgery are as follows:

  • Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery (Oesophagogastric and Hepatopancreaticobiliary)
  • Colorectal
  • A combination of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery and Coloproctology, known as General Gastrointestinal Surgery or Specialist GI surgery
  • Vascular Surgery
  • Transplantation (Renal, Hepatic and Pancreatic)
  • Breast Surgery (Including Oncoplastic)
  • Endocrine Surgery

In addition to these clearly defined disease-based areas of special interest there are others that are less well developed within the syllabus but represent substantial areas of practice:

  • Military Surgery
  • General Surgery of Childhood
  • Remote and Rural Surgery
  • Academic Surgery

The variations in the scope of practices within the specialty are highly variable and largely shaped by local circumstances, the needs of the service, and the personal development of the surgeons delivering those services. All general surgeons are expected to have developed an area of special interest by the time they gain their CCT and some will then go on to practice exclusively in that discipline either straight away or as their individual careers develop. There is also significant shared (‘Interface’) practice with other major specialties such as the head and neck specialties, urology and specialist paediatric surgery.

Further information on General Surgery training is available from the ISCP website.