6 Mar 2024
Round-up of our first British Transplantation Society (BTS) Congress, Harrogate, March 2024
British Transplant Physician Trainees (BTPT) are now officially an affiliate of BTS! It was great to get together in person at Congress after many months of online meetings and emails. We had a stand in the exhibition hall next to our surgical siblings The Herrick Society, which was a great chance to introduce BTPT to the wider community and attract new trainee and student members.
The annual BTS Dragons Den competition took place on the first afternoon of Congress, chaired by our President, Kaitlin Mayne and Charlie Brown, President of The Herrick Society. There were 3 excellent trainee (and medical student) presentations sharing their research proposals. Congratulations to physician trainee winner Sacha Moore for his presentation on the proposed DEFINE study: Determining outcomEs in FaIling transplaNted kidnEys. Next year we hope to be able to submit a BTPT Society collaborative research proposal – thinking caps on and get in touch with our Research Lead Farah Latif if you’re interested!
On Wednesday evening, we had a joint BTPT & Herrick Society social organised by our Membership Officer Amarpreet Thind at Major Tom’s Social. A great way to unwind after a busy first day at Congress and starting as we mean to go on building strong links with The Herrick Society.
BTS Council met on Tuesday and the Annual General Meeting took place on Wednesday and BTPT was approved as an affiliate society of the British Transplantation Society. It was agreed that BTPT will share a Council seat with The Herrick Society, attending alternate meetings and jointly representing transplant trainees (surgical and medical). We had fruitful discussions with the incoming BTS Executive Committee and look forward to ongoing discussions and collaboration.
The Medawar Medal session on Thursday is always a highlight of Congress. There were 8 very impressive talks from trainees: 4 clinical and 4 basic science. We are delighted to congratulate our Membership Officer Amarpreet Thind on being awarded the clinical Medawar Medal for her work on the impact of frailty on clinical outcomes after Kidney Transplantation in Older People – the KTOP study. Well done Amar, an inspiring example for physician trainees interested in transplantation!
On Friday, both our President and Vice President took to the stage in parallel sessions. Kaitlin was invited by the BTS Executive Committee to present in a session focused on workforce sustainability to present the physician trainees’ view. This was a great opportunity to promote BTPT on the main Congress stage and highlight that trainees are the future of the workforce - investing in and prioritising our training and education will ensure the future of the profession and BTPT is evidence of a motivated generation of physician trainees interested in transplantation. The talk was very well received and BTPT has been welcomed with open arms so far. Thanks to Council members who helped inform the content of the talk. Kaitlin’s slides are available to BTPT members.
Our Vice President, Waqas Akhtar presented in the Free Communications Oral Presentations session sharing his work entitled “UK donor heart focused echocardiography assessment working group: Current practice and strategy for improving donor heart utilisation”. Waqas is a Cardiology and Intensive Care Medicine trainee and brings particularly valuable experience and interest in the organ donation end of the transplantation pathway. Waqas also managed to use his talk as an opportunity to highlight BTPT and how a network of trainees across the country can support such work.