Foreword
by Mr Graham Sunderland
SMJ 2006 51(1): 41
Mr Graham Sunderland is a Colorectal Surgeon in South Glasgow University Hospitals. He obtained his FRCS in 1984 and became involved in College administration in 1988/89 as Ordinary Councillor while a Senior Registrar in Stobhill Hopsital (Fellow qua Surgeon who obtained full registration with the GMC less than 10 years before nomination). During this time he developed an interest in skills training, running early workshops from Stobhill hospital, which evolved into College Basic Surgical Skills Courses. These led ultimately to the Intercollegiate Basic Surgical Skills Course as we know it today. Graham was also actively involved in the development of the Clinical Skills Laboratory which opened in 1994 and in the Minimal Access Training Therapy Unit in Scotland (MATTUS) of which he was Regional Director. He was Clinical Skills Co-ordinator and Convener of the Clinical Skills Laboratory Committee from 1994 – 2003 and more recently took up the role of Director of Education and Member of Council. With the reconfiguration of the College Clinical Input and Management Structure, he is now Director of Surgical Education and CPD and a member of the Education and Professional Development Board.
Graham has had a long interest in surgical training and maintains this with representation on the Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Project, but sees a major challenge in all aspects of training for consultants and more senior surgical staff. This remains one of our key challenges as a College and as a profession. The collaboration we see here between the Scottish Medical Journal and the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Glasgow is an exciting new development in this area and promises to play an integral part in the education and training of the future clinician.