Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

• The unit has a diverse case mix.
• There is a high acuity to the workload, with patients admitted from a busy emergency department with a wide range of emergency medical and surgical presentations.
• The mean APACHE II score for ICU admissions is 22.
• The RIE is also home to a number of regional and national services: it is the Scottish liver transplant centre (100 liver transplants/year) and tertiary centre for neurosciences, hepatobiliary, upper GI surgery, vascular surgery, interventional radiology and obstetrics.
• The Royal Infirmary is also a major trauma centre supporting the South-East Scotland major trauma network.
• There is no split site working within this Unit

The Department has a strong academic history and is actively involved in a wide range of world leading research. The critical care research group runs a diverse range of clinical and translational studies. The Edinburgh Critical Care Research Group is led by Professor Tim Walsh and further information regarding the wide range of research projects the group has been involved in can be found at;

http://www.ed.ac.uk/clinical-sciences/divisionpgdi/anaesthesia

http://www.ed.ac.uk/clinical-sciences/divisionpgdi/anaesthesia/eccrg-twitter

The unit is staffed by consultants, doctors in training, clinical fellows, advanced critical care practitioners, nurses, specialist pharmacists, dieticians, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals.  There are around 35 non-consultant grade doctors on the rota at any given time.

Four consultants cover the unit during the day with two on call overnight, one of whom is resident in the department until midnight. There is a high level of direct consultant presence in the unit.

The trainee rota is a two tier rota that is made up of doctors in training and clinical fellows.

ACCPs work collaboratively with the medical staff on the unit.

• Training in point of care ultrasound 
• Interhospital transfers 
• Opportunity to attend a Cardiac Catheterisation lab
• Acting up as an ICM Consultant (for Stage 3 trainees) 

• Other: Advanced echocardiography, ICU follow up service

• There is one afternoon per month of protected teaching time – with expert presenters covering core ICM topics.

• Journal club is weekly, with some international speakers.

• Monthly MDT simulation teaching, and radiology meetings. 

• A FFICM preparation course is held every other month. 

• There are also regular mastery sessions for central line insertion.

• M&M meeting: 1 hour per week.
• Secondary M&M meeting: 3-monthly
• Joint M&Ms with neurosurgery, or interventional radiology: 3-monthly
• Grand round: 1 hour per week.
• Monthly consultant meeting: stage 3 DiT invited to attend
• 3-monthly senior staff meeting
• Trauma governance: 2 hour per month.
• Quality Improvement Team Meetings every 2 months.
• ICU Follow Up Service MDT Meeting: Every Monday afternoon
• ICU Follow up Clinics: Monthly

• Parking is limited across the hospital site, however, the critical care unit has secured 8 parking passes which are shared equitably amongst the non-consultant grade doctors. 

• A number of on-call rest rooms are available during and post shifts. 

• The hospital does not supply hot food out of hours but the critical care unit has 3 large communal staff rooms with appliances to prepare hot food. 

• A number of non-clinical rooms are also available with computers for general use, and are available to all.