FSEM and future college’s route to Membership
We are delighted to announce that the important amendment to our Standing Orders to propose a new route to membership, voted on in a recent Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine UK EGM, has been passed significantly.
This change has already been agreed with BASEM and ratified in our membership votes last year, being implemented as the new college is formed together. Therefore, the Faculty has been working hard over the last year, since the membership vote to write, standard set and run the first sittings of all the 3 new diplomas.
What does this mean?
This resolution provides a new route to full membership with postnominals for professionals, both doctors and physiotherapy colleagues, and potentially other AHPs, who have passed all three diplomas, in Team Care, MSK Medicine and Exercise Medicine. This change massively broadens our membership, while protecting our fellowship for consultants and others who have demonstrated exceptional service to both the Faculty and the specialty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (SEM).
Why have we made this change?
As our three Diplomas have now had their first sittings, we believe it is appropriate to offer this route to membership to the few colleagues who have achieved the very difficult task of passing all three diplomas prior to the formation of the new college.
This amendment forms part of the wider changes which will arise as the new college reformation proceeds. However, this change is a fundamental building block of what will become a multidisciplinary, multiprofessional college. We must offer our esteemed colleagues, especially those who support our multiprofessional approach, a chance to influence, a chance to impact and a chance to develop within our faculty and eventual college.
That is why it is so important we offer meaningful membership options, while clearly protecting our consultants who have worked so hard and made so many sacrifices to achieve their qualifications.
If we want to progress our specialty we need to broaden our membership. Forming a new multi-disciplinary college of Sport and Exercise Medicine provides far greater scope to discuss the future of SEM at a national level and on a political scale.
How will high standards in the SEM specialty and at the new college be maintained?
Following the extensive consultation process and outcome document, the new route allows the MFSEM examination to be a specialty examination, maintaining the high bar that is set for achieving CCT and fellowship, rather than diluting the current membership examination. Becoming a Member also maintains this high bar, as any prospective member needs to pass all three diplomas, which requires excellent knowledge and competency across all pillars of Sport and Exercise Medicine. These diplomas are standard set to the highest level and are designed to ensure those undertaking and passing the accreditation are of the required standard.
The Faculty will continue to work to drive up standards across all of our membership categories. For this reason, we are also currently developing the following workstreams which we consider key to standard setting:
- We will continue to monitor the diplomas and ensure the standard setting for all three remains robust and appropriately high.
- We are working to transition to a new Specialty examination which will form part of the GMC/SEM CCT process whether gaining this through traditional training or CESR route. To clarify, the CESR route remains the same. Members/candidates who are doing the CESR route to gain their CCT must have taken or must take the membership (soon to be named the ‘specialty’) exam. Once on the GMC UK specialist register in SEM candidates can then apply for Fellowship of FSEM, or the College in the future.
- We have written and published our workforce planning document which clearly sets out the role of a consultant within the multi-professional teams. It also sets out indicative consultant numbers per head of population and calls for training numbers to match that. We promote this at every opportunity and our teams are currently working on an abridged version for ICB’s, as well as social media assets as part of a marketing pitch illustrating our multi-professional approach to both MSK care and physical activity medicine.
- We are currently working on employment guidelines for organisations wanting to employ doctors and others working in Sport. These will clearly set out the differential qualifications and scope of practice for specific roles in sport. We expect to publish these this year.
- We are working with the RCGP on GPwER accreditation for MSK medicine which will be followed in due course by accreditation for GP’s working in team care and exercise medicine.
- We continue to work with RCP on the physician associate debate and, when appropriate will work together on a framework for scope of practice within our disciplines.
What about the current Membership exam?
The current route to membership will not be available after the final sittings of the current membership exam. The three diplomas will replace the old membership examination, which itself develops and transitions to a specialty examination. This examination will now more closely reflect the specific knowledge required on a consultant working in SEM, especially in the NHS. It is confirmed that passing the upcoming MFSEM Part 1 Examinations this year and the Part 2 Examination in April 2025, will still serve as a route to membership.
We advise that anyone planning to join as a member via this route should aim to do so through the upcoming MFSEM exams. If you are considering taking the MFSEM Part 1, you can learn more here.
Will passing all three diplomas be equivalent to passing the (soon to be) old MFSEM exams?
The role of the Faculty and the new college has been to standard set within each of our three pillars. Previously the only examination available was for doctors in the form of the membership examination. Many doctors sitting this examination were non-SEM trainees, and were only practising in one or two areas of our 3 pillars, making the examination a challenge to pass.
The diplomas have made exams available in each pillar for these doctors and provide standard setting for non-doctors within these areas. Moving forward, the specialty exam is dedicated to the process of achieving CCT and fellowship, therefore is not a directly comparable path to the 3 diplomas. This is aligned to all other physician-based specialties, where the specialty exams do not confer any post nominals alone, but are instead part of the CCT process.
The importance of these separate examinations has been verified in the large number of doctors and non-doctors sitting the exams, and the small proportion who have already sat all three diplomas. This has been a hugely important part of the development work of the Faculty and for the new college.
Closing remarks
As FSEM transitions towards becoming a College with BASEM, there are multiple changes necessary that need to be made to our processes, standing orders and examinations in order to prepare us for the future. Any college of SEM will need to reflect the entire workforce in each of our three disciplines in order to remain relevant and attract the right membership.
We are grateful to the huge number of people at FSEM who are working every day, often voluntarily, to make this transition happen. This transition, we hope, will secure the future of SEM as a specialty.
Dr Natasha Jones
President of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine UK