Dr Colin King
Dr Colin King is the Chair of the Anaesthesia Vocational Training Committee in the Auckland Region and is also a Consultant at Auckland City Hospital. Read about him and about training in Anaesthesia...
I've originally graduated from University of Otago and have
undertaken my clinical years at the Christchurch School of
Medicine. I've completed all my training in New Zealand and I have
experience working in Christchurch, Waikato, Timaru and currently
I'm working at Auckland hospitals.
I like Anaesthesia because it is hands on, patient orientated,
technically focused and it requires multi disciplinary team care of
the patient. I enjoy the operating room environment as there is
collegiality and a lot of team work. There is also a lot of
immediacy in Anaesthesia. The result of your 'handy work' happens
virtually within seconds to minutes, so you can see what you do
actually make a difference and I get a lot of satisfaction from
doing what I do.
The Anaesthesia training is based on the Australian and New
Zealand College of Anaesthetist guidelines. It is a five year
programme, which is a modular system. The modular system is broken
up into sub specialities and topics, where you must achieve
educational goals for the modules. In addition to the modules,
there is an EMAC course and a formal research project.
The Auckland training programme consists of approximately 90
training posts and includes the ability to rotate across all the
hospitals in the Auckland region. One of the major differences of
working in the Auckland region is that a trainee may undertake all
of their training requirements within the Auckland region. The
hospitals have three year training accreditation hence you cannot
complete your training in one hospital. Working in the Auckland
region allows you to rotate across three major hospitals which also
allow you to complete your training in one city.
There are two major exams, Part I and Part II. The Part I exam
is for your basic sciences and is orientated around a lot of
pharmacology, and physiology. The Part II exam is an exit exam and
is much more clinically focused. Auckland trainees have
continuously maintained higher pass rates than the Australasian
average. This may be due to having a number of study groups going
at any one time as well as having protected teaching time and
having highly motivated specialists and fellows enthusiastic
towards teaching. We also deal with high acuity cases due to being
a tertiary/quaternary referral hospital, so overall, you will gain
better experience.
We also facilitate for provincial postings in Whangarei and
Taranaki. The provincial postings offer diverse experience for the
trainees. I've never come across a trainee who hasn't enjoyed
working in a rural placement. The smaller environment offers
opportunities to take on more responsibilities and get to
experience the provincial lifestyle such as surfing, hiking or
fishing.
When I'm not working, I like to play tennis (I used to organise
a business house tennis group with the Anaesthetists in the team),
squash and cycling. I'm also an avid movie watcher and a skier.
What I can say is there is always something going on socially if
you want to get involved. We have an annual Registrar dinner at the
end of the year which is always a good party.
If you are intending to specialise in Anaesthesia, come talk to
me. If you can also get a run in Anaesthesia, ICU or HDU, do it.
Most of the Anaesthesia SHO applicants have had experience working
one year either as a Medicine Registrar Emergency Registrar. This
is because Anaesthesia contains such a broad spectrum of practise;
it helps to have experience in all specialties.