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training opppartunities in locum postiions

Hi,
I plan on doing locum jobs for about two years so can have much needed flexibility outside medicine.

I was wondering what type of training is offered , I know of some SHOs participating in training done for trainees in some hospitals.

Reply 1

junior.doctor

In general, locum posts are for service provision and therefore there is no training offered and they are under no obligation to provide any training.

In reality, this will vary. If you’re doing short term / single shifts as a locum, then I wouldn’t expect any training at all. You are there to fill a service need. And generally single-shift locums are to cover OOH work where there wouldn’t be much planned teaching/training.

If you are doing a longer term locum, e.g. filling an empty post for weeks to months, then it is possible that you might be offered some of the educational opportunities offered to trainees in the department. But this is by no means guaranteed. My experience of locum work is that if there is a department seminar / training session and the department is quiet then the locum is invited. But if there is service work to do then the locum person is the first to stay back and do that. Otherwise, as far as theatre lists etc or procedures is concerned, it would generally be the trainees that get first chance for the learning opportunities.

Reply 2

nexttime

It does depend on the position though. My old hospital offered a bunch of 'clinical fellow' roles, which were locums and no training obligations... however the surgical fellows were all far far more involved in teaching and going to theatre than any of the trainees. They had all chosen all surgical position because they were interested in surgery was the thing, and so they were treated more as junior regs whilst the rest of us did the work.

But on many other jobs its like the above. So it depends.

Reply 3

junior.doctor

I think clinical fellows are generally seen a bit differently to straightforward locums - at least that's my experience. Our department currently has a clinical fellow who's there for a year, so the department has a vested interest in training her up and making sure she learns. So she comes to teaching and sits in clinic etc, and is generally treated the same as the trainees. In one of my other recent jobs, we had a locum to fill some of the rota gaps, day time and OOH. He wasn't allowed to come to theatre to learn the niche day-case procedures that we had to learn, nor did he go to clinic. It was hard enough at times for trainees to get to those opportunities, and the department felt that his role was service provision and he had been employed because there weren't enough day to day staff. He came to the odd MDT when ward work allowed.

I guess overall if a department has you for many months, they perhaps have more of a vested interest in training you. Otherwise they probably want to get their money's worth out of locum fees by just getting the day job done.