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and we should be live folks. Uh, so, Doctor Colon, pleasure to introduce Doctor Colon. Um, is going to chat us about respiratory, and I'm not even eat up any more your time. Go ahead. Doctor Colon. Yeah. Hi, guys. I'm so sorry. I can't see everybody's face is there at the minute. But my name is Debbie Cullen. I'm actually a respiratory specialty doctor in Craigavon Area Hospital and also the foundation program director for other F one and F two s and Craig Gavin as well, Certainly thanks on you and the team asking me to come and speak today. So I think probably the most important thing that I kind of start any of these types of talks is I know everyone's a little bit sort of burnt out and things in the NHS at the minute. It's the thing that I would say is I absolutely love my job and still actually enjoy coming into work every day. And I know not everybody can say that. So I suppose, um what I just really want to talk about today is how I got into the role of being especially doctor generally a little bit about my my job in respiratory and sort of the pros and cons to it as a career choice. Um, certainly, when I was coming through undergraduate medicine, especially doctors and more the sort of old term staff grade, and was not something I really knew an awful lot about. Um, I just kind of seen the linear progression through medical training, of your foundation training into higher training or in the GP training as the sort of only pathways. But I suppose the thing is, you know, there there's more than one path that you can choose in life, and you have to pick what works for you. And being especially doctors is a great choice for me personally. Um, so I probably So I suppose what you need to be to be especially Doctor, you need to be four years postgraduate, and two of those years you need to have demonstrated that you have worked within the specialty that you're applying to. Um So what I did was I did my foundation training really wasn't too sure what I wanted to do, and kind of thought it probably going to G P. Medical training wasn't 100% so I did, and I won't call it F three. And but I took a year or two out and locum um, and just through absolute chance ended up low coming in respiratory medicine and really just kind of found my passion and calling there and absolutely loved it. And I've really adopted more of a sort of apprenticeships style training and just find local people that were willing to kind of teach me and train me up. So think about especially training is the pros to it Or, you know, you can kind of train at your own pace. And the majority of specialty doctors don't do an awful lot of phone call or if they do, it's very structured, you know, it follows a pattern of every six weeks or so, or whatever your department works. You do a part of an on call. Rota. Um, so the pros to that, or you get geographical stability quite early on in your career, Um, most specially training kind of last 78 years. And you usually rotate the hospitals every 6 to 12 months or so. Um, especially post you do get a lot of geographical stability. Um, and since 2021. The big thing that people would always say is, You know, especially doctors. You end up a little bit stuck on what are your career progression opportunities? Um, since 2021 there's the introduction of the specialist grade, which is kind of a step up from being a specialty doctor. Now, you do need an awful lot of experience in years behind you. To do that, you need to be. I think it's 12 years postgraduate and 6 to 8 years in your given specialty. But with that, um, you're you can basically work almost at the level of a consultant. You have autonomous practice. You can have your own patient's. You can have your own independent clinics, but you you specialize in a in a more niche area within your specialty and rather than the kind of broader based experience of some consultants. So for some people, that's a really great and trajectory for career progression, um, within respiratory and you, probably anybody works in co. Gavin can probably tell them in the intensive care unit at the minute, and my sort of specialist area that I like is critical care or the more enhanced care of respiratory Patient's um, I know other other colleagues have specialist interests and bronchiectasis cystic fibrosis, and you know you can kind of mold your job to what you want it to be. But what I would say is you have to have a lot of drive and a lot of independence to do that with training schemes, you have very set targets to meet. And you know, you have a broader pool of people within your sort of same level of training to kind of push you on, and you need to be a lot more independent and a lot more organized. If you want to progress as a specialty doctor and you know you still have your appraisals and things to do, so you do need to keep your own track on your own records. So that's probably one of the this, like drawbacks is, you need to you need to be very individually driven and and kind of know what you want to do. Um, one of the other. I wouldn't really call it a drawback. One of the things we always kind of hear people say is, you know, the the pay obviously isn't what a consultant pay would be, But I still think we're paid very well for what we do. Um, one of the other kind of things that I I haven't really actually came across because I work in a in an excellent trust in an excellent department, and is this sort of notion of grade is, um and where you're, you know, you're perceived as though you're not a consultant or you're you're not already just draw. You're not as good as us as it were. And I think that that's sort of a dying out thing. And, you know, everybody has mutual respect for for everyone. And we we all do a very good job. So that's that's just one of the other things that you might kind of here crop up. Um, but you know, certainly have to say that the specialty doctor job is it's very clinical job, and a lot of consultant posts have a higher sort of managerial expectation within it. And but you know that this job can be whatever you want it to be. And I have progressed massively and taken on educational rolls and actually taken on a director role within the hospital and which is a really big thing. And, you know, in Northern Ireland we only have a handful of specialty doctors that have ever taken on foundation program directors. So you know, it's something I'm very proud of and something I really enjoy. And it's a different string. Two am abo really in terms of my job. But have say I would hugely advocate and promote the role of being a specialty doctor. Am I love it and enjoy coming into work. Enjoy working with a really wide MDT, and you really do tend to be the sort of heart of the department in terms of knowing what's going on because you're there day in, day out. You know, you're a really good point of continuity within units. Um, so that's really I don't really want to eat up too much time in case people have any questions or anything for me, but I don't know if we kind of have time to do a Q and A Tim or so no questions in the chat the minute. But folks, now is your chance. We've got a we've got about three or four minutes left. Uh, we've got time here with Dr Colin to ask about specially grade in respiratory or a wee bit more even about being the the F one director. How do you find that aspect of your job, Doctor Colon? Yes, I suppose that that's a part of my job. I kind of get a time set aside for that in my job plan. So that's the other thing about being a special doctor. You do. You can have a set job plan. So you you know you're doing the same thing every week, and that can kind of be reviewed yearly. So it's a massive challenge. You know, I have about 45 trainees based in Craigavon and Mountain GP land. You know, it's it's really rewarding and that, you know, you get to know the curriculum really well. You get to see these doctors progress from the very start of F one, the first week of work to them finishing their F two training, and that's hugely rewarding to try and help them progress and learn throughout the year. Brilliant, Brilliant. So we've got about we've got about two minutes left. Sorry to cut you off, but we're so rapid fire here. And can you briefly outline what steps it took to become an foundation program director for Davos. There. Yeah, so, basically and you basically, you need to be a recognized trainer on the G. M. C and have your name. If you're in Northern Ireland, any left you need, you need your recognized trainer qualifications. I then and was an educational supervisor for a few years. And you don't necessarily need postgraduate or masters diplomas and education, but it's massively helpful to do.