Placement Resources

The GP3 placement should take place in person, for one whole day (for between 6-8 hours) each week, between the hours of 9am and 6pm. 

Timings are flexible - below is an example of how a day might run for the GP3 module.

Morning activities:

9-9.30 Welcome, preparation for the day

9.30-11.30 Meet patients  face-to-face 

• Consider how this relates to the log book requirements

• We suggest Supervised student clinics with minimum of 3-4 acute presentations or F/U each week - 30 min appointments

11.30-12.30 Debrief, feedback & filling knowledge gaps

Afternoon activities:

13.30 -14.30 Tutorial  

• Consider one of the Year 3 GP3 presentations or conditions if time permits

• Consider role play to develop patient consultation skills if time permits

14.30 - 17.00 Broader GP activities including:

• Data interpretation session (see GP3 presentations and conditions)

• Nurse or other healthcare professional clinic 

1. supervised learning - e.g. assist chronic disease monitoring clinic 

e.g. diabetes: take histories, review meds, check BP, dip urine, complete template

2. clinical skills - e.g. BP, ECG, spirometry

• Practice meetings (e.g. palliative care, MDT, clinical meetings)

• Home visit (with member of MDT e.g. coping with chronic illness) or Chronic Disease (non-acute) visits in pairs.

• Peer-led teaching  (this is not available in all practices) 

Dear Students 

My name is Dr ….and I will be your GP Tutor at …Practice Name for your upcoming GP3 placement.

Surgery information:

·       Address of Practice

·       How to get there

·       Details of Educational Co-ordinator

·   If there is more than one site – clarify where they have to go

Sessions:

- The Sessions will be from (add timings)

- Please arrive for (add time) at the surgery for your first session

- Information about lunch – should they bring their own or are there places nearby

- If there is any reason why you cannot attend, especially on the first day please inform me by email as soon as possible.

- We have moved to a “total triage” system in general practice with a “telephone-first” approach, it may be useful for you to familiarise yourself with these concepts. (this may or may not be relevant to your practice)

I look forward to meeting you all in ............ and we want to make sure you get as much patient exposure as possible.

Please could you confirm receipt of this email (with thoughts on key learning needs and what you hope to get out of the placement).

Best wishes

Dr

For student engagement and learning on placement, having a sense of belonging matters. Students need to feel that they matter, and are not just in the way - it enhances learning, reduces burnout. Click here to better understand how to achieve this in the GP3 placement.

This is the essence of the GP3 placement.  Students should meet patients both face to face as well as remotely over phone or video, different skills may be brought out in either of these. The GP tutor should gradually allow students to engage more with patients as they gain in confidence and ability.  If the placement is in Term 1 they will be less confident and may want to observe to begin with.  

We receive consistent feedback from students that they want more exposure to patients.

There are opportunities to undertake remote consultations and (pre-recorded) virtual patient encounters if required. Resources are included here in this guide. Share the benefits with students if you use them:

• They require good history taking skills

• They offer less opportunity for examination 

• They invite development of patient management (e.g. can stop the consultation and discuss management plan and then return to the consultation to practice this)

• They invite development of the ability to triage which patients need to come in for review 

If you require access to the Virtual Primary Care (VPC) platform then please contact Kate Scurr (k.j.scurr@qmul.ac.uk) who can assist with this.

Students' role in the third year is to learn with, from and for patients. The key things to remember are that patients need to know who they are and need willingly to give informed consent to help in their learning. The information that patients need to enable them to give informed consent includes what will be involved, a true estimate of how long it will take and the fact that it is for students' education and whether they say 'yes' or 'no' will not affect their care. 

Students should explain that they have the same duty of confidentiality as other professionals, namely that they will not discuss the patient outside of the clinical team or their learning group. Most patients will be happy to help students learn. If the patient prefers that students don’t examine them, students should thank the patient very politely and then move on to the next patient. Patients might well feel up to it next time the student speaks to them.

Student: "Hello, my name is ***, I’m a third-year medical student attached to Dr  ***. I’m currently learning how to take a medical history and I was wondering if you might allow me to talk with you before you see the GP. It will take about 10 minutes It’s just for my learning, so no problem if you say no."

Obviously, students should never pressure a patient to allow them to examine them – consent is a gift from the patient and should be given freely. Also, the students should never allow the patient to misunderstand who they are – if they say "Yes, of course doctor", for example, students should correct them: "Oh no, I’m not a doctor yet, I’m a student doctor and I’m just here to learn." Not only is this the right and ethical thing to do, but it also stops students from getting into trouble if a patient assumes that they are qualified.

Your GP tutor will:

• Email you prior to placement to let you know where to come etc. 

• Introduce you to themselves, the practice, the team, the processes and how things work in general practice.

• Do a learning needs assessment when you first attend the practice.

• Do a one-to-one inclusive induction at the start of the placement 

• Offer you debrief opportunities after seeing patients.

• Offer you an individual mid-placement one-to-one check-in.

• Offer you feedback on your clinical, consulting and professionalism skills.