Early exposure and mentorship in surgical specialties like otolaryngology – head and neck surgery are critical for medical students. This paper presents initiatives implemented at our institution to engage early-career medical students with the field.

A hands-on laryngoscope workshop was organised, and a centralised online platform was created for research and mentorship opportunities using a collaborative project management tool. Both measures were advertised via e-mail to student interest groups and campus diversity groups. At the end of the workshop, participating students completed an online distributed survey.

Students’ perception of their knowledge of airway anatomy and related clinical scenarios significantly improved after the laryngoscopy workshop (p = 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). All attendees indicated that the workshop increased their comfort level with procedures and that they would recommend the workshop to colleagues. Nearly half of participants reported becoming ‘very interested’ in exploring otolaryngology – head and neck surgery through future elective courses.

Implementation of such initiatives at other institutions can generate medical student interest and may improve diversity in otolaryngology – head and neck surgery.

To evaluate whether a brief training using a Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT) model improves attitudes of trainee psychiatrists working with patients with personality disorder. Trainee psychiatrists (n = 49) completed the Attitudes to Personality Disorder Questionnaire before and after a training consisting of two 3 h lectures on (a) theory of personality disorder and (b) practical skills using an MBT role-play.

There was a significant improvement on composite scores of attitude, with small to moderate effect size (Wilcoxon signed-rank test Z = 3.961, P < 0.001, r = 0.40).

Brief MBT-informed teaching oriented to the clinical situation appears to have a positive effect on attitudes towards people with personality disorder.

Communities of practice can facilitate the sharing and translation of knowledge. BRAINSPaN is a multidisciplinary community of practice of clinicians, researchers and students in the brain impairment field that was launched in Australia in June 2017. We aimed to investigate the impact of BRAINSPaN on multidisciplinary collaboration and on knowledge, skills and confidence in domains of practice of interest to members.

We surveyed BRAINSPaN members over three time points at 1-month (n = 117), 7-months (n = 69) and 14-months (n = 46) post-launch. Content analysis of posts to the BRAINSPaN listserv was also conducted to identify their purpose and content.

Increasing access to new research findings and increasing interaction with others in the brain impairment field were the two main goals for survey respondents’ participation in BRAINSPaN. At 7- and 14-months post-launch, these were also the most commonly achieved goals and most frequently cited benefits of BRAINSPaN participation. Cognitive rehabilitation and behaviour management were the most frequently reported practice domains of interest, as well as being two of the five most common topics of BRAINSPaN posts over the survey period. There was a significant increase in self-reported knowledge for participants’ top two domains of interest, but no change in skills or confidence.

BRAINSPaN has the potential to serve as a vehicle for the sharing and translation of knowledge in the brain impairment field. Combining other forms of dissemination with communities of practice, such as workshops and clinical mentoring, may be needed to also influence the development of skills and confidence in practice areas.

An increasing number of inexperienced doctors are rotating through otolaryngology departments and providing care to ENT patients. Numerous acute ENT conditions require basic surgical or technical intervention; hence, effective and efficient simulation induction training has become paramount in providing a safe yet valuable educational environment for the junior clinician. Whilst simulation has developed over the years for numerous ENT skills, to date there has not been a realistic and easily reproducible model for teaching the skills to manage one of the most common ENT emergencies, a peritonsillar abscess or ‘quinsy’.

We have adapted the Laryngotech trainer, a well-established ENT simulation tool, to present a readily accessible, reusable and realistic simulation model.

The model provides safe training for the drainage of quinsy.