SAS access to Specialty Specific Training

This page is still being developed - further information, including that for other Specialty Training groups, will be added soon. Thank you for your patience.

Medical

Through the Medical Specialty Training Board (STB), we have negotiated access to education and training sessions in a wide number of medical specialties. The administration of training differs depending on specialty and region. Some are administered nationally, via the specialist society or NES; others have regional or local arrangements. Some are on a virtual platform (MS Teams) and often available for catch-up after the training event once you have enrolled.

Do speak to your Lead Clinician or local Education Supervisors to understand what local, regional and national training events are available. They may be able to seek your inclusion or signpost you to contact the event organisers directly. To gain access to specialty specific training, firstly contact the Training Programme Director for your specialty and region. With their agreement, find out who you should contact to be included in the circulation list for online education sessions.

Palliative Medicine education sessions are conducted twice a year. An updated list of all SAS doctors in this specialty is submitted to the TPD annually for automatic inclusion in these sessions.

There is a national training programme for General Internal Medicine (IM Stage 2). All sessions are delivered between 13:30 to 16:30 online via MS Teams. The provisional programme for rest of 2025 is as below. A link to register interest is coming soon to this page.

• 3 September 2025 – Cardiology
• 9 October 2025 – Respiratory Medicine
• 4 November 2025 – Geriatric Medicine
• 18 December 2025 – Non-clinical

Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Paediatrics, and Sexual Health

The OGP-SRH Speciality Training Board welcomes SAS doctors joining Speciality Trainee training events.

National training opportunities can be found on the Scotland Deanery website - please click here for upcoming OGP courses and events.

For local events, we would suggest that you find out who is responsible for organising these by asking the Trainees themselves or the relevant Training Programme Director (TPD). We recognise that the organisers of these events can change frequently and it can be difficult to keep up to date.

Surgical

SAS surgeons should be aware of GOLD programme, a UK-wide national teaching programme for Higher Specialty Trainees in Surgery that allows SAS to access the same monthly teaching that higher specialty trainees undertake.

The sessions are held on the first Thursday afternoon of the month, 14:00-16:00; please see the 2025 schedule below. While several have already run, sessions are recorded and linked on the website to watch back, and there are also journal papers and other learning resources available.

You can register as a SAS at this link to get a username and password by email for the PGVLE (postgraduate virtual learning environment) to access the teaching at https://pgvle.co.uk.

2025 sessions:

Previous sessions on breast and colorectal surgery are also on the website. Many thanks to our SAS representative on the Surgical STB, Nikki Bruce, for making us aware of this opportunity.

This page was last updated on: 28.07.2025 at 13.51