All trainees in Acute Medicine must develop a specialist skill. These generally fall into one of four categories:

• Procedural skill (eg: echocardiography)
• Additional Qualification (eg: medical education)
• Speciality Interest (eg: intensive care medicine)
• Research

The Acute Medicine Curriculum lists all the pre-approved skills and the standards that you must attain on page 195. If you wish to train in a skill not on the list it is still possible but you must apply to the JRCPTB before you start. To do this you must apply to the Acute Medicine SAC. The chair of the SAC is currently Dr Mike Jones and the adminstrator is Felicity Stuart. We would advise sending an email to the chairman, CC'd to the administrator as a first step to making your application. Clicking on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it will prepare an email with the correct addresses.

Training in specialist skills varies from deanery to deanery and not all deaneries will provide training in all the skills. Therefore if you are particularly set on attaining a particular skill, then you may wish to contact the Training Programme Directors (TPDs) in the relevant deaneries to find out what skills training is offered in those deaneries. If you are having trouble finding out who the TPD for a particular deanery is then please email one of our trainee representatives and we will be able to put you in touch with the correct person.

For existing Acute Medicine trainees we would offer the following pieces of advice:

• Decide on your specialist skill early. Certainly by the end of your ST3 year at the very latest you should know what you are going train in and how you will achieve this.
• Do check with your local trainee representative and your TPD about how other people have trained in your chosen skill and try to ensure that when you move to your next post you will be able to continue your training with a minimum of disruption.
• Check the curriculum to ensure you are working to the standards you must achieve. Some skills will take much longer than others to develop.
• Consider the costs of developing your skill. You may have to spend many thousands of pounds to gain a medical education or management diploma and even more for a masters degree.
• Finally, let us know about how you are finding your skills training so that we can share the benefit of your experience with others.