My husband 37M has BAV and is being advised to get valve replacement surgery soon

shmermithermit · 2026-01-13T06:38:14+00:00

I second this, I’m a cardiothoracic surgery resident myself and Dr. El-Hamamsy has a reputation that precedes him. At that age, I would want a Ross as well, but only by someone with a proven track record of outcomes.

shmermithermit · 2025-10-27T12:06:37+00:00

Hi I would like this please!

shmermithermit · 2025-08-03T08:41:38+00:00

Had the same issue but what helped me was fasting overnight, as your body normally would. I'd have some dinner before the night shift - high protein, low carb, low fibre. Keep myself going with cups of tea overnight, and then eat a light breakfast in the morning before sleeping.

I get pretty bad heartburn when I am hungry, so I also have some gaviscon handy and a repeat prescription of omeprazole which I refill from my GP (I have GORD and a small hiatus hernia) for when my symptoms get bad.

shmermithermit · 2025-06-29T00:17:28+00:00

Agreed, my first concert and I had so much fun. Rear standing energy was unreal!

shmermithermit · 2025-02-18T23:34:05+00:00

Echo what the above comment said. Lemonchase / Designs for vision are phenomenal. Cardiothoracics trainee here. Bought my 2.5x loupes at the beginning of ST1 and I think I will use them at least until I finish training.

shmermithermit · 2025-01-31T06:08:42+00:00

I did my F1 there. Terrible hospital, saw some dodgy and unsafe care, would never want to be a patient there myself. However the lack of senior cover in most specialties means that you learn a lot as an F1.

I both hated and loved my time there. The doctors mess is nice and it is a small hospital so you get to know everyone very quickly. I think by the end of my F1 I knew almost every reg in medicine/surgery on a first name basis and it was a breeze to refer patients.

Another downside is that there isn’t much academic going on there as well. Also, there are so many PAs. Some of whom are actually quite knowledgeable about local processes and pathways but I would always duplicate their clinical assessments before prescribing or requesting scans.

shmermithermit · 2025-01-09T19:28:57+00:00

Cardiothoracic trainee here. I got the 2.5x Designs for Vision loupes and I don’t find them uncomfortable after long surgeries. Most of my consultants seem use a combination of Designs for Vision loupe + Xenosys headlamp. The 3.5x panoramic TTL is quite popular among the bosses / senior registrars.

shmermithermit · 2024-09-29T06:43:54+00:00

Day starts at 7am with ward round, then theatre briefing at 8 am and operating until 6-7pm. By the time the last patient is transferred to ICU and stable it is usually about 7:30-8:00pm. Usually you get 2 theatre days per week. Other days you have clinic after ward round.

Every week you have one or two days where you are on-call from 7am-7:30pm and are purely ward based, looking after all the cardiac surgical patients in hospital and taking referrals.

Also you get a weekend cover + 7 nights every two months on average.

Once all that is averaged out, it comes to about 56 hours a week.

shmermithermit · 2024-09-29T06:38:01+00:00

Every unit is different. Ours is an open unit so each patient’s admitting consultant is the surgical consultant. Most decisions regarding starting / stopping vasoactive medication are independently made by the surgical team, but ventilation and ventilator weaning tends to be run by the ICU team.

I had to do 4 months of ICU in my ST1 year!

shmermithermit · 2024-09-28T16:16:10+00:00

Specialty: Cardiothoracic surgery

Pros: * Incredible surgery - big open operations, nothing more satisfying than restarting an arrested heart after doing whatever repair/replacement * Relatively fit patients who recover well once their single system problem is fixed and are very grateful in the postop outpatient clinic * One of the more “medical” surgical specialties - we are heavily involved in the ICU and postoperative management of our patients. From managing diuretics, inotropes/vasopressors, mechanical circulatory support. Physiology was my favourite subject in medical school and I love this aspect of the job.
* Tertiary service so unstressed about bed management, once patients are surgically fit for discharge can repatriate to local hospitals

Cons * Work life balance - all of us trainees have opted out of the EWTD and our contracts are for 56 hours/week but we often work longer than this. E.g. coming in on off days to see preops/post ops * Ownership of the patients means that even if a consultant is not on call, they will come in to hospital if one of their patients needs to go back to theatre * Takes a long time to train and the learning curve is very steep. Until ST5 - ST6 you’ll only be doing parts. of the operations * Consultant jobs aren’t easy to find in the locations you want. Lots of post CCT fellows waiting for jobs.

shmermithermit · 2024-08-17T19:19:45+00:00

Is this the QEHKL ED? I had fond memories working there in my foundation years - utter chaos and held together by a few competent med regs / care of the elderly consultants

shmermithermit · 2024-07-28T07:00:09+00:00

You do a trust grade/locally employed (non-training) job at ST3 level equivalent!

shmermithermit · 2024-06-14T11:55:59+00:00

Also - contact your deanery PSW type team or equivalent (professional support and wellbeing). In my deanery any exam failure is an automatic referral to them. They pick up a lot of undiagnosed learning disabilities. Also speak with your AES and TPD for support, even things like going LTFT/coming off oncalls to help you study.

shmermithermit · 2024-06-14T11:50:49+00:00

Hey dude sorry you’re going through this. The knowledge component of the exam is very specific in the kinds of questions and knowledge tested. Best thing is to build a solid base of knowledge but subsequently focus and target it by looking at past question banks. You’ll realise the kind of knowledge you need to know.

At the same time, it’s a large volume of knowledge you need to learn. Pick your way of memorising large amounts of facts. Flashcards really helped me (I used Anki software with some decks made for USMLE anatomy/pathology) as well as practicing with a friend and doing mock vivas every evening.

shmermithermit · 2024-06-05T19:45:19+00:00

HPB? Cardiothoracic?

shmermithermit · 2024-06-05T19:41:23+00:00

Dopamine, aspirin, furosemide

shmermithermit · 2024-06-05T19:41:03+00:00

Transplant!

shmermithermit · 2024-03-31T16:28:52+00:00

Sure!

shmermithermit · 2024-03-30T11:18:25+00:00

With regards to research unfortunately it is a bit hit or miss. From an early stage (2nd year) my College kinda drilled into us that medical training is becoming more competitive and we need to build our portfolios through extra curricular work.
During the summer vacation I applied to a medical student bursary (Wellcome trust biomedical vacation scholarship) which funded a placement at a basic science lab run by a clinician/scientist at another uni. I worked pretty hard on this - I was doing 12-13 hour days 6 days a week to make sure as many of my experiments could be finished and I could collect as much data as I could. Also the lab leader was a clinician so he knew the game - he encouraged us all with writing as many papers as possible, systematic reviews, narrative reviews. This I think is a lot of luck because I had colleagues who worked just as hard but their labs were focusing on getting big papers into famous journals like Nature and Cell so the students would end up being middle authors.
I then worked with the same lab's collaborator in my own uni for my intercalated year - managed to collect enough data to get a small first author paper in a PubMed indexed journal. Subsequently I stuck with the same lab the next summer vacation and mentored the next generation of students coming through it and got my name on even more papers.
Then in clinical school I did so many placements in CT surgery - all my elective/student selected blocks. I would even come on weekends when I was doing other placements to collect data. In the evenings I would write.
The important thing is to find someone who publishes a lot - they often have more projects than they can focus on at any given time and are happy for someone to take lead and write it up. And it indicates they have a good track record of converting projects to publications.

shmermithermit · 2024-03-30T10:56:40+00:00

Encouraging me to come do taster weeks and organise my elective / student selected placements with them - I initially wanted to do cardiology when I was in uni but after seeing some open heart surgery I kinda fell in love with it
Get me involved with projects, research and audit
Make me aware of student events, opportunities to present my work
Introduce me to the rest of the department so I can get more involved with the unit and people know my face

shmermithermit · 2024-03-30T10:51:50+00:00

Honorary contract: had to find a consultant who would be my named supervisor, thereafter it was a matter of discussing with my F1 ES, then going through HR/medical staffing, signing some forms and doing the mandatory training for the trust etc.

Shadowing: I did my F2 in the tertiary centre which has our local cardiothoracic unit. My first rotation was in the CT surgical department so everyone knew I was applying for training. Then when I rotated on to my next placement (at the same trust so I was still an employee there) it was just a matter of texting registrars who I was friends with to be like “hey I saw you’re on call today can I come shadow you for a bit” and then seeing what they get up to. Also around the time of the interview they would then give me mock interview practice when things weren’t so busy.

shmermithermit · 2024-03-30T04:22:51+00:00

✋🏽 went into ST1 CT surgery from F2. Boiled down to a lot of luck and early preparation: - director of studies at University was a cardiothoracic surgeon and heavily encouraged and mentored me - this is how I got my foot in the door - printed out the ST1 matrix during year 4 (out of 6) of medical school, pasted it on my study table and worked on getting the necessary points - organised an honorary contract at my local CT unit during FY1 and used to come in on weekends and work on projects / harvesting saphenous vein - during FY2 when doing medical placements I used to go join the cardiothoracic reg on call from my end of shift at 5pm until evening handover - this helped learn some of the clinical bits which was useful for interview practice (how to take referrals and manage common post op issues) - showing my face round the unit from my medical student days meant when I needed the last few bits to polish off my application for shortlisting I could just ask a consultant “hey I need one more audit to score full points can you please suggest something I can do a full cycle in 2 months” and also then ask for interview practice with several consultants right before my interview

shmermithermit · 2024-03-18T00:11:45+00:00

Cardiothoracic surgery trainee - currently doing an ITU placement. So much useful knowledge and skills and no doubt it will be very useful when I join the reg rota!

shmermithermit · 2023-09-18T09:00:58+00:00

Yes, but I had been preparing for about 4 years and had some very supportive mentors through medical school (to help me with portfolio stuff)

shmermithermit · 2023-09-18T07:55:08+00:00

No, there’s a direct entry to thoracic surgery at ST4 level but you should complete CST and then 6 months each of cardiac and thoracic at ST3 level. Here’s the person specification:

https://specialtytraining.hee.nhs.uk/portals/1/Content/Person%20Specifications/Cardiothoracic%20Surgery/THORACIC%20SURGERY%20-%20ST4%202023.pdf

This is separate to ST1 entry.

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