Trainee Exchange Programme

FAQ

• What about funding?

  Award amounts will be provided up to a maximum of 8,000 € for each three month Trainee exchange. Amounts awarded will include a first award to cover travel and first month expenses followed by subsequent awards subject to a first month evaluation. Award amounts will also depend on type of accommodation available at the host centre, cost of living in the host country and any other criteria deemed appropriate by the Trainee Exchange Programme Committee.

  Financial support would get most doctors towards the top of that well known gradient, the “learning curve”. However, in the longer term, we are certain that providing our best young people the opportunity to enhance their training will prove to be for the greater benefit of European anaesthesia in general.

  * Europe as defined by the World Health Organisation

• Medical Tourism: Training in another country?

  Particularly in the UK, trainees in anaesthesiology or intensive care often spend a year training in another country. This was known as the “BTA” which used to mean “Been to America” and now more often means “Been to Australia”. Well-chosen training posts were often formative, with advantage to the sending centre, the trainee, and the centre that received the trainee. However these “years out” could often be more of a tourist opportunity, and much of the learning takes place in the first 3 months. Since the UK, North America, and Oz (Australia) have approximately the same language, such transfers are easy.

• Benefits for home and abroad?

  For Europe, we propose a more concentrated and formative scheme. Selected trainees would be supported by a grant from the ESAIC so that financial problems would not distract from the learning experience. Free of the problems of arranging employment, and with centres chosen to offer excellent training in specific topics, we believe that in three months a trainee will absorb a great deal of new clinical experience, and return with new skills and enthusiasm, ready to pass the benefits on to other trainees at home. The scheme will be open to both trainees and to young staff, who might particularly be able to add to their home training programme.

• Do I have to speak the local language of the centre I am applying to?

  This depends on the host centre. In the list of Host Centres, it is indicated which languages are required in order for you to carry out the exchange.