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Pioneering surgical taster session for potential Medics, Vets and Dentists

Pioneering surgical taster session for potential Medics, Vets and Dentists

Canfordians have a long standing record of success achieving places for Medicine, Veterinary Science and Dentistry.  In the past decade we have seen 82 pupils taking up places on these highly competitive courses, including at Oxbridge and other top Russell Group/Sunday Times Top 12 institutions.

Dr Mel Jenkins and Dr Robin Wotton (both Consultant Thoracic Surgeons at St George’s Hospital, London), along with Dr Kirstie Kirkley (a trainee in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Bristol University Hospitals) visited on Wednesday 30th November to provide an insight into their careers in cardiothoracic surgery, including their routes into Medicine and Surgery through university and various training courses after medical school. The pupils, all of whom are hoping to study Medicine, Veterinary Science or Dentistry, were given the chance to try their hand at a range of surgical skills. These included learning how to tie off blood vessels at depth, apply various forms of sutures to wounds, insert and secure chest drains in a pig thorax, and finally testing their hand-eye coordination and keyhole surgical skills on a VATS (video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery) simulator.

These sessions are usually used as part of surgical training activities at medical school, and this was the first time that the team at St George’s had run a session of this kind in a school. All three of our visitors were really impressed at how enthusiastically our students got involved and how quickly they picked up these key surgical skills.

Nick Warde, Head of Biology, commented: 

This was a unique experience which I am sure opened the eyes of our pupils who perhaps hadn’t considered the possibility of a career in surgery before, and which will certainly help them in their application process.  Our grateful thanks to Dr Jenkins, Dr Wotton and Dr Kirkley for taking time from their very busy schedules to share their expertise and passion in such an engaging and fun session.”

Find out more about Canford’s Careers programmes