Why was CATCH developed?
In September 2019, the Clinical Academic Training Forum (CATF) launched a working group which aimed to gain a better understanding of how information is communicated to current clinical academic trainees and to those healthcare professionals who are potentially interested in a clinical academic career. The aim was to discover how they currently access information, what it is they want to know, and what information they need but cannot easily find.
The results of this scoping exercise revealed that there was no resource available that contains all relevant information for clinical academic trainees in a single site. In addition, although medical trainees were relatively well-supported, the information for trainees from other clinical backgrounds such as dentistry and nursing was less complete.
Consequently, the Medical Schools Council set up a second working group which aimed to establish how CATF could collectively address these issues. This group was chaired by Professor Jane Norman from the University of Bristol and consisted of clinical academics across many disciplines, including current trainees/students, early-career researchers, postgraduate deans, university hospital R&D directors, and industry colleagues. Its aim was to establish the purpose, scope, and content of a new clinical academic careers website with the aim of communicating enthusiasm for and core information about clinical academic careers.
Following extensive consultation with clinical academic professionals across the UK, CATCH was launched in September 2021. The website will be continually developed as more information becomes available. If you have any feedback or would like to report an error, please contact us.