Hybrid Community General Practise placements for year four medical students; a pilot study

THE PROBLEM:

Firstly, general practise is a broad and varied career. A contemporary GP CV is often brimming with experiences in special interests, bespoke service delivery and time spent in both scheduled and unscheduled care. Community medical student placements traditionally occur within a practise. Students gain experience of the traditional partnership model, the roles of allied professionals and special interests. However, exposure to unscheduled care is somewhat limited. Secondly, the diverse and forever changing workload and commitments within general practise can sometimes cause issues in securing a quantity of quality placements

APPROACH:

University of Manchester year four medical students undertake a four week block in general practise. Students allocated to a hybrid block spend 75% of their time in their designated surgery and 25% in unscheduled care.

There are two streams within the pilot study 1/ seven day access (7DA) 2/ Out of hours (OOH) service providers.

Those allocated to OOH will spend four hours per week rotating through the different services available such as base triage, treatment centres, bespoke services and mobile home visiting.

Those allocated to 7DA will attend an out of hours extended hours surgery weekly

Feedback will be obtained from the students and the tutors involved to draw conclusion and comparison.

THE LEARNING:

To date, one block is operational in the 7DA stream. The feedback so far has been positive. Students offered the OOH stream have been enthused. By the time of conference, feedback would have been obtained from both students and tutors in both streams.

WHY IT MATTERS:

If successful, this pilot will provide supportive evidence to expand the student experience. It is hoped that this would influence the future career choices of students and encourage more into General practise. Expansion of placements into unscheduled care providers would increase the volume of available placements.

Presenting author: Dr Gillian Shaw, Clinical lecturer CBME. The University of Manchester. Gillian.shaw-2@manchester.ac.uk
Co-authors: Dr Enam Haque. Senior Clinical lecturer. CBME. The University of Manchester. Enam.haque@manchester.ac.uk