Transplant surgery fellowship in UK, Europe or Canada?

[Keno]

Hello forum,

So I am approaching the end of my general surgery training in South Africa and intend to take up a fellowship post in transplant surgery.

My question is about registration: is it possible to register as a specialist with the GMC for a fellowship post without doing the PLABs? Could I sit for the FRCS without first doing the PLAB?

Ditto for the rest of Europe and Canada. Do european countries like France and Germany require specialist IMGs to write entrance exams?

Thanks, greetings from Cape Town
Keno

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[Medstart108]

Congrats, but this is a really specialist question. To be honest, how many people like there are you in the world, definitely not many and close to 0 who visit this forum. Not many people will know your situation. You are much better off asking the countries themselves. I know that Canada has a lot of fellows from other countries and the UK will have a lot of specialist trainees but I don't know enough about transplant surgery to help. If you are interested in transplant surgery, Toronto has the largest transplant program in Canada but Edmonton, Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa (for Heart). for the UK it is spread out all over the place http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/about_transplants/transplant_units/ but this is the best link about it. Otherwise you are going to have to enquire. For transplant surgery even a center like Toronto will only accept 1 or 2 fellows a year, to get one of those spots you better be amazing and you might also have to be a Canadian citizen just to stand a chance.

Cape Town should be a pretty good place for transplant, the world's first heart transplant was there, why don't you stay? I know Canada has a lot of physicians who've done their training all in South Africa and found a job here at some of the best hospitals (tbh though the job market is horrible right now)

 

[Keno]

Thanks for the reply..

So I've been through the GMC site a few times and I'm still trying to figure it out as it's not clear.

It says that the MRCS or FRCS is an 'acceptable postgraduate qualification' for gmc registration. So now I'm trying to find out what the requirements are to sit for the intercollegiate MRCS - not clear from the royal college site.

Re transplant in South Africa: we don't have an official training program and my research area of interest (tissue engineering), isn't well established here.