Wednesday, 25 October, 2017

A general resolve to improve the relevance of the Refresher Courses to trainees resulted in Board agreement with the concept of the Chair of Education, Dr Donal Ryan viz. that of having one course at the end of the year and another at the beginning of the following year – with a view to being more specifically focussed on the exams in April-May. The concept of thematic meetings e.g. cardiovascular critical care, neuro-critical care etc) to be retained. The idea of combining with other meetings e.g. BASIC or Beyond BASIC courses was favoured as was the idea of resurrecting the idea of an MCQ element to the speaker contributions. Such MCQs could in turn be utilised by the exam committee for its MCQ bank.

It was submitted by the ICSI (following a letter from Organ Donation Transplant Ireland) that there needs to be continuing high level emphasis on Training in the diagnosis of Brain Death nationally. Noted that IDAP (Irish Donor Assessment Programme) course is evolving to a very modern and relevant format and that it is open to all doctors who have an Intensive Care practice – not just to FJFICMI trainees, for whom it is obligatory.