Do you have any top tips for trainees looking to set up their own networks?
SWARM
We feel that the key is good leadership and creating a team of enthusiastic, like-minded individuals (both trainee and consultant) that work well together across the whole deanery. It is not the committee members who drive success but the local trainee leads that run projects at the local level and this needs to be recognised. Designing a good 'launch model' that secures a 'quick victory' and shows to others that the model can work is important. We also feel that utter transparency when it comes to collaborative aims and functioning is important, as is your authorship rules. We think that publishing under the name of the group and not the individual is a key difference from the surgical groups and truly promotes involvement. Finally, don't underestimate the contribution that both students and junior members can make.
WM TRAIN
Just get started! You only need a few like-minded individuals, a kitchen table and a couple of bottles of wine to decide on a name and then you're off. Get advice from those who are further ahead, SWARM and WMRC have been fantastic and very generous in lending us their constitution. Ignore the doubters, not everyone has to be interested in the same thing, but listen to everyone, it's easy to lose the big picture. We want to improve patient care; there's little point in producing low quality work that no one will pay attention to for the sake of it.
