It is my privilege as Assistant Registrar to oversee College matters relating to the pathology workforce. I am supported by a great workforce team – Fiona Addiscott, Reshma Patel and Kitty Kean – in this important though sometimes unenviable task in the context of widespread workforce shortages across pathology. We gather data and publish reports to highlight current challenges and influence investment in the pathology workforce. Our tasks also include providing guidance about job descriptions and input into appointment committees to help ensure high standards for recruitment across the pathology workforce.
Celebrating you all
Our pathology workforce is clearly vital to the ability of healthcare services to provide patient care and high-quality pathology services. This issue of the Bulletin promotes that workforce and highlights some of our newest members – Foundation Fellows and those undertaking Higher Specialist Scientific Training (HSST).
It’s never too early to get people excited about pathology, to raise awareness of pathology careers, to spark enthusiasm for our varied specialties and to recruit a pathologist in the making.
The pathology workforce and the College membership is made up of a huge range of roles, including medical students, foundation doctors, specialty trainees, clinical scientist trainees, SAS doctors, medical consultants, consultant clinical scientists, veterinary pathologists, biomedical scientists, medical examiners and medical examiners officers. We celebrate you all.
Pipeline for the future
Dr Angharad Davies, Vice President for Learning, introduces us to the work the College has been doing to ensure we have a pipeline of pathologists for the future.
It’s never too early to get people excited about pathology, to raise awareness of pathology careers, to spark enthusiasm for our varied specialties and to recruit a pathologist in the making.
Angharad talks about the ever popular Foundation taster event, which was held online this year because of the pandemic. Consequently, it reached a much larger audience. The event showcases pathology careers with a group of enthusiastic volunteers who clearly made a big impact on the attendees: ‘It was clear that everyone participating in the event is passionate about pathology, and that made me feel very excited.’
Foundation Fellows
Angharad also introduces some of our newest College members – Foundation Fellows. These are foundation doctors whose job rotation includes a spell in a pathology discipline and who are therefore eligible to apply for a Foundation Fellowship. This year was the first year of the scheme and I’m delighted to see it was so popular and 24 people were appointed.
If you have foundation doctors rotating through your pathology department, please do encourage them to apply for future rounds. It is a great way to help support early career doctors into pathology. You can read interesting points of view from two Foundation Fellows on page 255.
Higher Specialist Scientific Training
Lisa Ayers and Professor Berne Ferry from the National School of Healthcare Science (NSHCS) introduce us to some relatively new members – those undertaking HSST.
The HSST programme was introduced several years ago and now the first few consultant clinical scientists are emerging from the completed programme.
Clinical scientists make up a vital part of the workforce in several pathology disciplines, most notably biochemistry, genetics, reproductive science microbiology, haematology and transfusion. Their training includes the achievement of FRCPath by examination and they ultimately work independently at consultant level.
Lisa and Berne also describe how HSST trainees helped with the response to COVID-19, utilising their capacity for innovation and adaptability. Five HSST trainees share their experiences on pages 257–260.
Opening up to biomedical scientists
Lisa and Berne also report the recent change to eligibility to allow biomedical scientists to access HSST training. This will open up the career progression options for biomedical scientists to train as clinical scientists to consultant level, and will broaden the resilience of the workforce through skill mix.The opening up of HSST training to nontraditional routes such as biomedical scientists is an example of thinking differently about the traditional assumptions we have made about our workforce, and the assumptions we make about people. This brings me on to the importance of diversity and wider inclusion.
The College will strive to make our diversity more visible, to celebrate and recognise the immense value of all members from many different backgrounds and identities.
Diversity and inclusion
Both the College and the NSHCS started work in 2020 on improving diversity and inclusion. Our workforce is hugely diverse, yet this isn’t represented at senior levels in the College.
The NSHCS, which directly recruits into scientist training, is also examining their recruitment and training processes to ensure greater diversity and inclusion. You can read more about the work of the NSHCS in this area.
The College will strive to make our diversity more visible, to celebrate and recognise the immense value of all members from many different backgrounds and identities. You can see the work the College is embarking upon. We need your input to ensure this work is not just a topical reaction to events, but instead leads to long-lasting change.
Rising to the challenge of the pandemic
Finally, I want to recognise the hard work and dedication by all of you, especially over the last year with the challenges of the pandemic. At least we can be sure that most of the world now knows what a virologist does and the importance of pathology testing and infection control. We will continue to work hard to raise the profile of all our specialties.
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