Neonatal Echocardiography and POCUS Senior Clinical Fellow

Neonatal Echocardiography and POCUS Senior Clinical Fellow St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

We look forward to a Senior Clinical Fellow joining our targeted neonatal echocardiography (TNE) and point-of-care-ultrasound (POCUS) team. The postholder must be skilled and enthusiastic with extensive neonatal experience in tertiary level neonatal units. This post is most suited to doctors who have finished their neonatal training, are close to finishing, or have extensive experience in tertiary neonatal units. The successful applicant will need to demonstrate substantial interest and ideally some initial previous experience with neonatal echocardiography/ultrasound.

This post is either 6 or 12 months long, taking applicants for September 2025 or as soon as available to commence.

Main duties of the job

This post involves clinical commitments on our tertiary surgical neonatal intensive care and substantial commitment to point of care imaging involving neonatal structural echocardiography, functional echocardiography, lung ultrasound, and ultrasound to define the position of central venous catheters. You will be supervised by consultant neonatologists accredited with European Academy of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) certification for congenital heart disease echocardiography who collaborate closely with on-site fetal/paediatric cardiologists from the Royal Brompton Hospital.

About us

The unit currently has 12 intensive care cots, 12 high dependency, and 16 special care cots. We have over 500 admissions/year (excluding transitional care) and over 12,000 cot days per annum. 40% of babies are in-utero or ex-utero transfers; and over a quarter of all admissions have a surgical condition. 8% of babies are less than 27 weeks gestation. We care for all conditions requiring intensive care support, except complex cardiac and ECMO cases. Available facilities include conventional and high frequency ventilation, neurally-adjusted ventilatory assist (NAVA), inhaled nitric oxide, echocardiography, POCUS, complex imaging and neuroimaging, CFM, EEG, and up to three cots for therapeutic hypothermia. Other specialist paediatric services include infectious diseases, respiratory medicine with long-term ventilation, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, radiology, neurology, genetics, endocrinology, community paediatrics, ENT, plastic surgery, orthopaedics, haematology, oncology, and gastroenterology, respiratory medicine, as well as a visiting cardiologist. We work closely with the fetal and maternal medicine department who provide a supra-regional service in fetal medicine.

Job responsibilities

St. George's is a busy London surgical tertiary neonatal unit that works closely with its nationally commissioned specialist Fetal Medicine Unit. The neonatal unit undertakes over 500 Point of Care ultrasound assessments every year. In addition to acute POCUS assessments, the neonatal service runs 52 neonatal cardiology clinics every year. The neonatal cardiology service is supported by the Paediatric Cardiology service from the Royal Brompton Hospital. The neonatal unit has an excellent training record for neonatal echocardiography. So far, eight trainees trained at St. George's Hospital progressed to successfully complete the European Academy of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) certification for echocardiography for congenital heart disease. The neonatal unit hosts the very popular Echocardiography for Neonatologists Course twice a year with delegates participating from all over the UK and internationally. The Neonatal POCUS service is led by neonatal consultants (POCUS trainers) who have extensive experience in neonatal echocardiography and POCUS assessments. POCUS trainers on the neonatal unit also teach on the annual St George's Advanced Neonatal Cardiorespiratory Support study day which has individual POCUS workshops and national POCUS courses. The trainers are actively involved in the recently formed British Association of Perinatal Medicine NeoFocus-UK special interest group.

The training will be in accordance with evidence-based recommendations for targeted neonatal echocardiography, neonatal POCUS practice, and education considering the governance framework, evolving nature of this sub-speciality, overlap & distinction between echocardiography, TNE, and POCUS.

Person Specification Qualifications and Training

• Full registration with GMC
• MBBS, MRCP or MRCPCH or equivalent
• Ideas for a research project.

Experience

• Tertiary neonatal experience
• NLS provider
• NHS experience
• NLS Instructor
• CCST or CCT in Paediatrics (Neonatal Medicine) or equivalent on specialist register by equivalence

Skills

• Sound experience of advanced neonatal procedures.
• Enthusiasm to teach skills to others
• Evidence of previous neonatal ultrasound/echo experience

Knowledge

• Higher knowledge in neonatology
• Child safeguarding
• Willingness to learn
• Evidence of involvement in multi-disciplinary audit
• Understanding of Clinical Governance issues

Personal

• Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team
• Commitment to continuing medical education
• Good interpersonal skills
• Good organisational skills
• Flexible approach
• Supportive nature
• Ability to self-motivate and motivate others

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

£41,750 to £64,288 a year per annum pro rata