College of Paediatricians

News Letter  February 2012

Dear Colleagues. It is my pleasure to greet you at the beginning of 2012 and wish you a great year ahead. May all your dreams be fulfilled and all your goals realised. As the new President of the College of Paediatricians I thought that we should kick off the New Year by launching this Newsletter as a way for us at the College to improve our communication with Paediatricians in the country. I would like my term as President to be a time in which we build bridges and forge links with every practicing Paediatrician in South Africa. I do believe that all of us have a stake in the future of Paediatrics and being involved in determining the quality of doctors we place in our communities is up to us all. The next 3 years should be a time in which all of us get involved in College activities. One of the ways you could do that is getting involved as an examiner in Post Graduate examinations. More about that later. I also endeavor to send this Newsletter out 3 times each year and welcome your input and feedback.

2012 promises to be an exciting and challenging year for Paediatrics in South Africa. NHI is coming and Paediatricians will be at the forefront of that initiative. The Paediatricians and Diplomates we train today will be called on to lead the new health system beyond this year.

I also want to pay tribute in this first Newsletter to the Past President of our College, Professor Haroon Saloojee. He has transformed our College in many ways but his most successful initiative was to improve the quality of our examinations. We now have fully standardized, blueprinted and moderated examinations. Both the FC Paed exams and the DCH have been extensively overhauled and upgraded. I do believe that we have a product today that is world class and our graduates are now tested in a way that truly uncovers knowledge and skills. In addition we have a fully standardized and regulated set of Certificate/Sub-speciality exams.

 

College Examinations

As a result of the processes to improve examination standards 2011 saw consistent pass rates and for the first time an improvement in the pass rate of the FC Paed part I exam. In September of last year we achieved a pass rate of 66% for that exam. There is ongoing debate at College Council about what this means. And whilst I am not sure where our pass rate should be I would like the majority of candidates to pass. I don't believe that we should accept that with adequate teaching and training we can't consistently get our junior doctors to pass this exam. And yes that may mean that we need to be offering training opportunities to doctors, even those outside of training institutions, to better prepare them for exams. I do think that the College of Paediatricians can take the lead in supporting our Universities and teaching hospitals to identify doctors who want to specialise in Paediatrics and support them, even before they start their Registrar training. However, this is a lofty ideal that will need the help of all of us around the country. The challenges is to find mentors for junior colleagues in remote and rural areas. You can help!

 

Prize Winners

Our prize winners for examinations in 2011 were:

FC Paed(SA) Part I - Leslie Rabinowitz Medal - Hayley HUTTON – October 2011

FC Paed(SA) Part II - Robert McDonald Medal - Nicola Sian BRICE – October 2011

These two doctors performed extremely well. We offer them our heartiest congratulations.

 

New Council

Let me introduce you to our new Council:

Councillors:

Prof Alan Davidson (UCT)

Dr Louis Heyns (US)

Dr Rajendra Thejpal (UKZN)

Dr Radhika Singh (UKZN)

Prof Stephen Brown (UFS)

Prof Vic Davies (Wits)

Prof Daynia Ballot (Wits)

Dr Gary Reubenson (Wits)

Prof Haroon Saloojee (Wits)

Secretary: Dr Sharon Kling (US)

President: Prof Robin Green (UP)

 

Exam Venues

The following examination dates and venues have been allocated for this year:

MARCH/MAY – 2012

Written – Examination with orals (DCH, FC Paed II): 19, 20 & 22 March

 

Written – Examination without orals (FC Paed I):  27, 28 & 29 March

 

Oral (DURBAN): 21 - 23 May

 

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER – 2012

Written – Examination with orals (DCH, FC Paed II): 21, 22 & 23 August

 

Written – Examination without orals (FC Paed I):  28, 29 & 30 August

 

Oral (GAUTENG): 15 - 17 October

 

As I mentioned earlier our College is keen to have representation on our examination panels from all regions in South Africa. By that I mean not only senior Academics from the Universities but also our more junior colleagues and Paediatricians in Private Practice. So attached to this Newsletter is a return slip. Please complete this if you want to be involved in exams. Clearly we would like you to have a role in teaching and have maintained some academic contact, but I know many of you have. Please get involved!

 

Sub-speciality Certificate Examinations

During 2010 and 2011 our College put into place Regulations and Guidelines for examinations in all of the registered specialisations of Paediatrics. You can view those on our College website (www.collegepaeds.ac.za). The available Certificate exams are:

Allergology (New)

Cardiology

Critical Care

Endocrine and Metabolism

Gastroenterology

Haematology

Nephrology

Neonatology

Neurology

Neuro-developmental

Oncology

Pulmonology

Rheumatology

All these disciplines now have standardized and clear exam protocols. Logbooks are also available for all of them.

 

Website

I would also like to pay tribute to our website host, Prof Alan Rothberg. He has maintained a valuable resource through difficult times. He has secured ongoing funding for our website from Nestle. This site has so many great features. I urge you to pay it a visit at www.collegepaeds.ac.za but even more importantly to contribute items. Alan is always looking for lecture and article material.

I think that's enough for now. Please join me in making our College great and helping us to develop a perfect product - the Paediatrician and Diplomate of the future.

Regards

Robin Green