GPCME Teaching

GP Teaching 

The ethos of years 1, 2 and 3 is to stimulate consideration of definitions and meanings of health and the factors that can influence this.

Topics covered in Year 1 include:

• Health and Normality
• Health in the Early Years
• Internal/Psychological Influences on Health
• Environmental Influences on Health
• Social Influences on Health and Health Inequalities
• Economic and Political Influences on Health

Half the Year 1 topics are delivered as tutorials led by GP tutors and half as interactive lectures. GP tutors hold their tutorials in the surgery, providing a novel setting for students, and allowing access to patients early in the undergraduate curriculum. As well as the home visiting parts of the courses, patients are brought to the surgery to assist with the teaching. It is important that this course aims to develop ‘clinical attitudes’ as well as clinical skills, and this mix of locations, tutors and patients optimises this.

The course also includes teaching in reflective practice and writing. This is assessed both formatively and summatively in Year 1 

Years 2 and 3

Teaching explores the effects of disease on patients’ lives and those of their families and communities.

Year 2 topics covered include:

• Person centred communication in primary care and illness in the community
• Problem solving and long term conditions
• The practice and it’s team
• Activity limitation (disability)

Year 3 topics include:

• Epidemiology (or populations, health and disease)
• Prevention or health promotion
• Occupational health, environmental health and sustainability in primary care
• Ageing and multi-morbidity
• Living with dying
• General practice live

Teaching is delivered to small groups of students by only GP tutors in their practices around Aberdeen. Visits to patients in their own homes and in nursing homes and tutorial teaching involving patients visiting the surgery allows early patient contact.

The Year 3 course also includes teaching in reflective practice and writing.

The Ross Taylor Prize

This prize is named after Dr Ross Taylor, a distinguished academic, general practitioner, and a former head of the Department of General Practice and Primary Care, who retired in 2005. The prize is funded from an endowment bestowed upon the University by the subscription of his friends and colleagues. It is awarded annually in Year 3 

Year 4 – Community Placement (compulsory)

Students are allocated a 6 week block in general practice, 5 weeks of this is spent in a GP surgery.  The emphasis is on reinforcing the principles of medical knowledge and skills already gained through Years 1, 2 and 3 in the secondary care setting and considering their application in primary care.

There is also a requirement to look at the wider aspects of primary care, including the contribution made by a range of other health care professionals.

The aims of the placment are threefold:

• To learn general medical principles in a primary care setting
• To build on knowledge gained in Year 2 in Public Health and population based medicine within the context of community and primary care
• To build on knowledge gained in Year 2 in Occupational Medicine within the context of community and primary care

By the end of the block students should be able to demonstrate knowledge of common illnesses presenting in primary care; appropriate communication skills and a reflective approach to learning.

The learning objectives of the course are in line with domains of “The Scottish Doctor” as well as the "GMC's Outcomes for Graduates", looking at:

• What the doctor is able to do
• How the doctor approaches their practice
• The doctor as a professional

Learning is mainly experiential with tutorials and self directed learning as part of core teaching held before the placement.

Students are likely to see in the region of two hundred and fifty patient consultations over the 5 weeks and have to undertake several themselves.

All Work Based Assessments must be completed using FormSquared and completing all relevant sections of the e-portfolio on MyMBChB.

Placements

All placements are carried out within Grampian, Fife and Highland in Year 4, the availablity varies for each block.

The Sheila M McLennan Prize

This prize was established in 1995 by a generous endowment from Dr William M McLennan, formerly a general practitioner in Fraserburgh, in memory of his wife Sheila M McLennan. It is awarded to the most distinguished female student in General Practice in Year 4.

Year 5 - The Assistantship

After the first week of core teaching in Aberdeen students spend 7 weeks with a practice anywhere from Aberdeen city to Stornoway in the Western Isles, and from Shetland in the north to Stranraer in the south-west. This affords students the experience of working in urban or remote settings. During this course, the students from each year who choose a further placement in general practice develop medical knowledge, skills and attitudes by consulting on their own, visiting patients in their homes, undertaking student selected primary care based activities, completing a Log Diary and attending a day-release programme.

The aims of the attachment are the same as for Year 4 but the student is expected to achieve them at a higher level of understanding.

At the end of the attachment each student should be capable of the following:

• Describe the context of Primary Care in the Community
• Describe the presentation and management of common problems encountered in general practice
• Carry out a patient-centred consultation, demonstrating appropriate medical interviewing skills, shared decision making and eliciting the patient's ideas, concerns and expectations
• Demonstrate a reflective approach to his/her experiences, utilising this to identify personal learning needs and consequently acting on these

The Richardson Prize

This prize is named the Richardson Prize after Professor Ian M Richardson, who retired in 1984 and was the founder of the Department of General Practice in 1970. The prize is funded from an endowment bestowed upon the university by the subscription of his friends and colleagues. It is awarded to the best student in clinical General Practice.

Student Selected Components

A number of Student Selected Components can be chosen by students throughout their course. Modules offered by the Centre of Academic Primary Care have been commended for their innovation and quality.

Electives

An 8 week long elective project is also carried out in Year 5. Each year a number of students choose a general practice-related topic, although they often spend their time at a community base distant from Aberdeen - for example, America or Africa, while being supervised by the section staff. Topics of recent projects supervised by staff members include: family planning, GP audit, management of infection and pre-hospital management of myocardial infarction. 

Elective Prizes

There are a number of prizes for elective projects. Students should also be aware of the RCGP/SAPC Elective Prize. For further information on this prize visit Society for Academic Primary Care.