Supporting and promoting ENT within the College

We have had the pleasure of leading the Otolaryngology (or ENT) Surgical Specialty Board for the past two years as Chair (Steven) and Deputy Chair (Nashreen). The board is a key component of the College, offering a unique perspective on the issues affecting ENT and promoting the College ethos.

The board meets twice a year. The meetings moved online during COVID-19 but we now have one face-to-face hybrid meeting a year to maximise attendance. The board offers a great opportunity to build and extend surgeons’ relationships with the College while making active and important contributions to education and policy. Our diverse and active group of clinicians represents the complete range of grades and subspecialties so the widest possible viewpoint is achieved. 

Trainees are the College’s present and future. Rory Houston, Northern Deanery specialty registrar, is the SSB trainee representative and Behrad Barmayehvar is a representative from the Association of Otolaryngologists in Training. Rory has done some great work on mentorship and recently completed his MBA in this area, while Behrad has skilfully represented important trainee views. One of the key achievements has been collating important texts that trainees found useful for MRCS and FRCS, which the College library have added to the e-book collection.

Education is one of the key strands for both the College and the SSB and we look forward to working with the new Dean of Education, Jon Lund. Jon joined our last meeting and we all enjoyed a discussion about opportunities to develop the ENT educational offering. Board members have key educational interests: Vikas Malik from Bolton has joined the podcast working group and Sadie Khwaja from Manchester has joined a group investigating hi-fidelity simulation models.

Some exciting educational developments include Steven leading the development of the College’s one-day Surgery and the Child course, with Gareth Hosie from paediatric surgery. 

Nashreen represents ENT and head and neck surgery on the College’s Robotics Task and Finish group. She contributed to a good-practice guide on robotic services, trans-oral robotic webinars including ARIS, and the Future Surgery conference.

Accreditation of courses is a key role of the board. Richard Steven from Fife has been leading in this area, accrediting several courses and ensuring that a high standard of evidence of their quality has been presented before College co-badging is achieved. The SAS/LED workforce has been brilliantly represented by Shyam Singam from Torbay over the past few years. The board also has several experienced examiners, including Quentin Gardiner from Dundee, and we are developing strategies of how best to support this key College function. By appointing Catriona Douglas from Glasgow, the latest recipient of the Hunter Doig medal, to the board, we have a strong advocate for research. 

RCSEd has long been known for its inclusive nature and international outlook, and we are delighted to have appointed two international members: Henry Pau from Hong Kong and Ramya Thota from India.

One of our strengths is our relationship with ENT UK, our specialty association. Iain Bruce from Manchester is the representative from ENT UK on the board. The College and ENT UK have partnered brilliantly over the years for many webinar series, with Jaya Nichani continuing to lead for ENT UK in this area. We are honoured to be supported by the former President of ENT UK, and current RCSEd Council Member, Nirmal Kumar. He is the Council representative on our SSB and provides an excellent conduit to the Council.

One of the pleasures of the board is being able to recognise clinical excellence through the nomination of deserving clinicians for the award of ad hominem Fellowship. The most recent award was nominated by a former Chair of the SSB and the current SAC representative to the board, Omar Hilmi from Glasgow, who proposed Professor Greg Randolph from Boston for his outstanding career in ENT and thyroid surgery. The board was delighted to support this nomination.

This snapshot of the SSB only scratches the surface. Please contact us if you have any questions for the SSB and please consider joining the board when future nominations arise.