Job Plan: Dual ICM & Emergency Medicine

Basic Info:

Number of years as a consultant	10 months
Single or dual (which specialty if dual)	Dual with Emergency Medicine
On calls in which specialty	Both

Unit Info

Number of beds	20 ICU, 20 HDU
General +/or subspecialties (Paeds, Neuro, Cardiac)	General
Single site or split site working	Single site

Annualised Job Plan?	Yes
DCC’s: Daytime On call/Out of hours All ICM or split between another specialty?	8, split 4.25 ICM, 3.75 EM ICM time is rota’d on a six-month basis around “not on call” requests that we put in to allow the rotamaster to do so EM DCC is split roughly 50:50 between adults and paediatrics and is fully self-rostered other than on-call shifts
SPA – Core Other	1.5 0.5 Education
Resident on call?	No
Frequency of on call	Roughly 2/3 share of a full intensive care rota (usually 6.25 PA) which includes a pro rata share of the on calls including nights and weekends Also one weekday emergency medicine on call shift every six weeks
Additional roles and PA’s	Nil currently
If dual specialty, how is it funded between specialties?	Funded by Critical Care

ED/PED Shift – 0800-1600 2PA
ED/PED Late – 1600-2200 2PA
TTL N – Major Trauma Team Leader night shift 2200-0800 (resident, locum)
HDU N – HDU on-call consultant 1800-0130 (but on-call till 0800 if required) 2.41 PA
ICU day shifts – 0800-1800 or 0800-1900, variable PAs
SPA/admin time is 4 hours per PA, admin time counts as DCC

I have always been interested in paediatric emergency medicine, and a crucial part of my negotiations for a job was to ensure that I had an even split between critical care and emergency medicine, as this would give me sufficient time in my job plan to ensure regular shifts in the paediatric emergency department.
My critical care clinical director was very receptive to this, and this ensured that I was willing to accept a job in this hospital. My emergency medicine clinical director was also willing to accommodate this.
It’s very important to talk to the clinical director(s) prior to application to ensure that a job can be created that meets your needs, particularly if those needs are make-or-break.
I was also open about the possibility of taking a sabbatical for further prehospital emergency medicine experience and feel that there would be no issues with me doing this if I were to choose to do so in the near future
I had a lot of good advice when trying to choose where to work, but the key one for me was to ensure I picked where to get my consultant job based on the people. Make sure that you’re with colleagues that you get along with and can see yourself working with for the next 20-30 years.