About the Carrel Club
The Carrel Club is for trainees in transplant surgery in the United Kingdom, and is affiliated with the British Transplantation Society and the Association of Surgeons in Training. We aim to bring together surgical trainees with an interest in transplantation surgery, and to represent and support such trainees.
The Carrel Club is named after Alexis Carrel, the French surgeon who pioneered arterial anastomosis and developed the basic technique of kidney transplantation.
Membership of the Carrel Club is open to all specialist registrars, specialist trainees (MMC) and clinical or research fellows with a declared interest in transplant surgery in the United Kingdom. From this membership a committee is elected to provide representation of transplant surgery trainees on the BTS Council, BTS Transplant Training and Education Committee, Chapter of Surgeons Committee and the ASiT Council.
First meeting in Manchester, December 2004
The re-formed Carrel Club held its first annual meeting at the Chancellor's Centre in Manchester on 3rd December 2004. During this meeting, Gabriel Oniscu (Edinburgh) was re-elected as first President, and Marc Clancy (Manchester) as Secretary.
Discusions were held on the plans for multi-organ retrieval zones in the UK and their impact on transplant surgery training, as well as advice on the part III FRCS examination for general surgery with declared interest in transplantation. There was also a debate on whether subspecialty training in transplantation is long enough, which resolved that it was not.
Subsequent meetings
A well-attended meeting took place at the BTS Annual Congresses from 2005 to 2011, where a variety of issues important to surgical trainees in transplantation were discussed. A copy of the report to BTS Council from 2005 is available here in PDF format, and includes some of the conclusions of our discussions.
As well as the meetings at the BTS congresses, we have held annual meetings most years in October or November. These were held in Birmingham, then later in London, with discussions of key issues and presentations by some leading consultants, ranging from an introduction to small bowel transplantation to advice on obtaining a consultant job.
