This award is currently closed.

The Trainees Out of Programme Experience Award is designed to help gastroenterology trainees in the UK access training opportunities that are not available as part of their local training rotations. There is a single award of £1000.

The money should be used to fund travel, to assist costs of arranging the post (e.g. registration with foreign medical councils), or to present publications arising from the attachment at national/international meeting.

Eligibility

The award is open to any BSG member who is training in gastroenterology in the UK. This includes members of the BSG Trainees Section Committee not directly involved in the organisation of the award. Applicants must have a National Training Number (NTN).

The applicant should be undertaking (or planning to undertake) an attachment or posting outside of their normal training scheme. This may be within the UK or abroad and can be a short term attachment or longer clinical post.

Conditions of the Award

The successful applicant must submit a report to the Trainees’ Section within 12 months of the award. The report should include a summary of the work undertaken and information on opportunities for other trainees.

The winner is required to attend the BSG Annual Meeting to receive their prize.

The prize money should be used to fund travel, to assist costs of arranging the post (e.g. registration with foreign medical councils) or to present publications arising from the attachment at national/international meetings.

Application Process

Submissions are anonymised prior to being assessed by a panel approved by the BSG.

The personal statement should contain a full description of the work, a description of why the work is relevant to training, and a proposal of how the money will be spent. The application should detail the available local training opportunities and what additional benefit the proposed attachment will offer.

View the full BSG Policy for this award.

How to apply

Applications for this award open Thursday 30th November 2023 and close Friday 16th February 2024 at 5pm.

Complete the application form here. Below are the fields you’ll need to complete.

• Please write a personal statement containing a full description of the work, a description of why the work is relevant to training and a proposal of how the money will be spent. The application should detail the available local training opportunities and what additional benefit the proposed attachment will offer: 750 words

Judging information

A panel of judges will score candidates across the following categories:

• Scope of training opportunity (Score 1-5 –0= no evidence of research of other opportunities to 5 demonstrated a significant amount of research of training opportunities)
• Relevance to training (Score 1-5 –0= not demonstrated any relevance to 5 demonstrated a significant benefit to training)
• Funding of the training opportunity (Score 1-5 –0= no plans for the funding of the opportunity to 5 well planned use of funds)
• Training opportunity that will add real benefit to patients (Score 1-5 –0= no benefit to patients to 5 demonstrated significant benefit to patients)

The panel is selected by the BSG Trainees Chair and is a selection of eminent individuals in their field. A diverse selection of reviewers from different backgrounds are invited to ensure a fair system is in place. To ensure the process is fair for all applicants, the reviewers are also kept anonymous. Reviewers will declare any conflicts of interest before the process, and are removed if this is the case.

Where possible, the reviewers are blinded, however please note that applicants for these awards are often unique and well established. Therefore it may be possible to determine who an applicant is based on the information they provide.

Previous Out Of Programme Award Recipients

2024: Nasar Aslam, and Gaurav Nigam, Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford

2023: William Blad, University College London Hospital, and Mohmmed Tauseef Sharif, Addenbrookes Hospital

2022: Dr Nuru Noor, Cambridge University Hospitals

2021: Dr Phoebe Hodges, Queen Mary University of London

2020: Dr James Kang, East of England Deanery

2019: Dr Rebecca Harris, East Midlands Deanery

2018: Dr Shraddha Gulati, London and South East Deanery

2017: Dr Beverley Kok, Peninsula Deanery

2016: Dr Dipesh Vasant, North Western Deanery

2015: Dr Sarmed Sami, Yorkshire and Humber

2014: Dr Grace Dolman, Wessex Deanery

2013: Dr Lachlan Ayres, Severn Deanery