Applying to core surgical training has always been a competitive and ambitious path with many applicants reaching out to expensive courses or literature to guide them through the application process. The COVID-19 outbreak heightened the difficulty and severed connections to previous support tools for foundation doctors interested in pursuing a surgical career during the pandemic. In the East Midlands, we identified this weakness and aimed to create a conduit to support our trainees through their application process.

The Surgical Buddies Scheme was created in September 2020. This scheme involved connecting current Core Surgical Trainees (CST) doctors with keen Foundation doctors interested in applying to CST. The intermediary, buddy scheme organisers matched juniors with the tutors based on shared interest and location.

26 foundation doctors (FY) joined the scheme across seven sites. The FY two doctors were given priority and were matched up with 22 CST doctors. Feedback forms were distributed to collect qualitative and quantitative data regarding their participation. The Feedback summary forms showed that the most common used contact platform was zoom (35.7%) and texting for additional support (35.7%). The average hours of contact spent were 4.2 hours. The qualitative feedback data from the FY doctors showed all their initial pre-scheme objectives were met.

Effective leadership led to the initializing and distribution of a Buddy network system to offer a one-to-one contact between applicant and tutor. The initiative of the original scheme led to a large team of tutor collectively supporting and guiding our cohort of applicants.

The success of the scheme was recognized by the Nottingham University Hospital (NUH)NHS trust Postgraduate Medical Education Team (PMED). The scheme expanded into a specialty specific NUH Peer Support Scheme. The CST application ideology has been extended to internal medical training, Psychiatry and General Practitioner training schemes.