Paediatrician of the Future: Delivering really good training

Published in October 2020, this is a guide to the RCPCH principles for postgraduate paediatric training and how to apply them within local training programmes. It applies to our updated training programme, RCPCH Progress+, which is live as of summer 2023.

About this guide

You can download the guide at the bottom of this page. It includes ideas, illustrations and case studies drawn from examples of practice across the UK.

Some may be straightforward to implement locally; suggestions are given of how to best work within current constraints and maximise the opportunities for every trainee to access the training they want and need.

Some may be more aspirational, but are designed to be useful prompts for those responsible for designing training, as they consider where and how changes to the training programmes should be targeted in future.

The guide has four sections:

  1. Background on the RCPCH philosophy which underpins the approach to programme and curriculum design
  2. Describes the 11 RCPCH Training Principles
  3. Describes how these principles can be applied in existing training settings taking a whole population approach
  4. Outlines how Schools can further develop their application of these principles to provide really excellent training

What do children and young people say?

We asked thousands of children and young people what knowledge, skills and attitude the paediatrician of the future needs. Here are the top three skills that were identified:

  • Being respectful, kind, supportive and having a friendly approach
  • Having good medical conduct where we feel listened to, understood and you are aware of other conditions that I might have that are important to me but maybe not part of your specialism e.g. acne, growing pains
  • Having good communication that is focused on age and needs

My wish for child health is that children and young people are given the power and tools to make decisions that affect their lives. The only way to know what we want is to ask us and talk to us.

We are the future. Services need us to be part of them to help them be what we need and this means you need to asks us and then do something with what we say.