Dr Brett Doleman is an Academic Clinical Fellow currently at the Royal Derby Hospital and the University of Nottingham. He is currently CT2. He was a graduate entrant to medical school having graduated with a 1st class degree in Biology. He graduated from the University of Newcastle with distinction and honours and won the Philipson Scholarship for the highest marks in the medical school final exams. He returned to the East Midlands (he was born in Derby) to undertake foundation training. He then completed a PhD in statistics and pain at the University of Nottingham before entering an Academic Clinical Fellowship in Anaesthesia. He has numerous peer reviewed publications, has presented at national and international conferences and is a junior editor for the journal Techniques in Coloproctology. He was also a PhD assessor for the Danish study PANSAID which was one of the largest multimodal analgesia trials conducted. 
  

Personally, I find the training scheme at Derby of a high standard. Module leads are approachable, friendly and supportive when it comes to getting modules signed off. The EMSA regional meetings have informative content including practical workshops and offer an opportunity for trainees to present posters on audit and research. There is regular regional teaching sessions including helpful preparation for exams. There is also local teaching to complement this which are mapped to the training curriculum.  
  

Dr Brett Doleman, Core trainee, EMSA

A major advantage of the East Midlands is the excellent combination of picturesque countryside, large inner city areas (good for social life) and cheap housing. This means the quality of housing per £ is much higher than elsewhere in the country and has meant I could afford my forever house during CT2 which would not be possible if I was training in the south of England. In addition, transport links are excellent with regular train and bus services between the major cities whilst from a central base most training hospitals are commutable within an hours drive which would not be case in larger regions.  
  

For me personally, my reasons for choosing the East Midlands to train were numerous. I knew the area well from growing up here and knew it was an excellent place to live and train.

There are a good variety of hospitals from large trauma centres (QMC) through to smaller DGHs (Chesterfield, Kings Mill) with hospitals somewhere in between (Derby). But for myself, the region offers an excellent base for research. There are large anaesthesia research departments at Nottingham, Leicester and Derby which offer an excellent opportunity to undertake research for those interested. The local trainee research group MERCAT are always looking to support trainees with research ideas or help those wanting to get involved with research. Overall, the East Midlands offers an excellent training programme, a cheap but beautiful environment in which to live and regional research opportunities which is hard to rival in other training regions. I am extremely happy I chose the East Midlands and look forward to my future years living and training here.