The General Practice Working Group (GPWG) has been meeting since March 2022. This group was formed to link individual and small group general practitioners who teach Flinders University medical students and to give general practitioners a voice into the medical program. An additional purpose of this group is to increase the prominence of general practice as a potential career given the current workforce shortages and the need to increase the number of general practitioners in Australia and the training pipeline.
One of the first tasks of the GPWG was to identify and articulate the concepts and experiences that general practice provides for student learning:
Key concepts included:
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- Continuity of care – the development of long-term relationships with patients, understanding the health care history of the patient
- Coordination of complex disease care or chronic disease management
- An understanding of the Australian health care system with the central role of the general practitioner
Key experiences included:
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- One-on-one supervision with a single senior clinician or team of senior clinicians
- Wide range of presentations providing the opportunity to undertake a wide range of clinical skills
- The opportunity for students to see patients on their own in a safe way
In 2023, Year 3 students will undertake a six-week clinical placement in general practice. We anticipate that these placements will expose students to these key concepts and experiences and build their knowledge and understanding of the health system outside of the hospital.
The GPWG is committed to ensuring that Flinders MD graduates “understand and describe the roles and relationships between health agencies and services, and explain the principles of efficient and equitable allocation of finite resources, to meet individual, community and national health needs” (Domain 3.7), as required by the Australian Medical Council (AMC) Standards for Assessment and Accreditation of Primary Medical Programs.
What are the unique experiences in general practice?
Supervision of learning
- One-on-one supervision with a single senior clinician or a team of senior clinicians
- Shared responsibility for student learning between all practice staff
- Role modelling professionalism and ethical behaviour
- Role modelling the responsibility of being a patient’s doctor
Patients as facilitators of learning
- General practices often have established relationships with their patients
- Patients in general practice acknowledge their shared responsibility for facilitating the learning of future doctors
- General practices see a diverse patient population
Broad clinical skills
- Wide range of clinical presentations provides the opportunity to undertake a wide range of clinical skills
- Effective use of telehealth and the skills required to assess patients using digital technology
Independent learning
- The opportunity for students to see patients on their own in a safe way
- The opportunity for students to make decisions regarding the patient
What concepts are important in general practice?
Continuity of care
- Developing longer-term relationships with patients (longitudinality)
- Understanding the health care history of the patient
- Understanding the relationship between the patient and the community in which they live
- Understanding comprehensive care across a range of health problems and illnesses
- Coordination of care across a range of different care providers
Type of care
- Coordination of complex disease care
- Chronic disease management
- Conditions that are managed solely in general practice
- Screening and prevention care designed to keep patients out of hospitals
The crucial role of general practice in the Australian health care system
- An understanding of the Australian health care system
- Access to care issues including proximity, cost, availability
- Pathways to care for patients
- “Doctoring”- autonomous decision-making, responsibility for the patient
- General practice is not pre-hospital care or out-of-hospital care
Clinical reasoning
- Clinical reasoning and diagnostic skills
- How to approach the undifferentiated patient
- Complexities involved in consultations in general practice
- Medical decision-making in different contexts – rural and remote
- Complexities involved in prioritising presenting issues
Aspects of private practice
- General practitioner as a business owner
- Ethical and legal responsibilities
- Different ways of structuring private practice
For more information contact Dr Julie Halbert, Deputy MD Director