Educational Programme

Course Aims

The scheme provides an integrated educational programme that runs through the three years of training. The content is designed to complement the work and teaching you will receive from your clinical supervisors whilst in each post. It is based on the contents of the RCGP curriculum www.rcgp.org.uk though does not attempt to cover the whole curriculum. You will discuss your own educational requirements with your Educational Supervisor and they will help you to meet these.

 

Course Structure

The training programme is held at the Education Centre, Lancashire Teaching Hospital, on Wednesdays from August to June. The team of Medical Educators leads the sessions.

There are separate fortnightly teaching programmes for ST1 and ST2 on Wednesday afternoons from 2.00pm to 5.00pm. The course programme is on the website within the Calendar on the resources page and you will be made aware of any alterations by the course administrator.

The ST3 course is held on every Wednesday mornings at the same venue from 9.30am to 1pm. In the ST3 year training doctors from Ormskirk also participate in the sessions.

Speakers presentations are emailed directly to relevant GPSTs following each GPST Teaching session.

 

Content and Style

The course uses a mixture of large group and small group work. The small groups are formed early in ST1 and will continue to work together through the three years.

The focus of the course in ST1 and ST2 aims to facilitating passing of the AKT assessment and developing consulting skills. 

Personal Development (e.g. learning styles, ethics, self-audit, etc)
Academic General Practice (e.g. statistics, critical reading, etc)
Minor specialties (e.g. ophthalmology, ENT, etc)
Practical skills (e.g. examination skills, joint injections, etc)

The content of these are chosen because they may be more difficult to cover in other ways in your clinical posts and individual GP surgeries, or are areas where group learning is especially beneficial (e.g. ethical issues, critical reading, discussing cases and hot topics etc). When small groups are used it's because they encourage the following:

Mutual support

Mutual challenge

Learning tolerance and mutual respect

Understanding diversity

Learning from each other

Learning about teamwork

Sharing responsibility

Opportunity to raise issues in 'a safe space'.

These are skills for life in hospital and general practice, for lifelong learning, and for passing the MRCGP!

In ST3 we build on the consulting skills, to assist with the CSA assessment, and begin to focus on aspects of practice management.

        

 

 

Specific types of sessions

All sessions are intended to be interactive, but some are quite structured, especially if they use an external resource. These sessions tend to explore important areas of general practice 'beyond the text books' which you may not meet everyday, or which are difficult to cover in a topic based tutorial. Examples include personal financial planning, partnership issues, ethics, and aspects of management.

Group work - these are opportunities to explore issues from everyday practice including your own, and from the current news with regard to primary care. Examples might include interesting cases from surgery, cases which raise problems, critical incidents when something went wrong, medico-political developments, current hot topics, and ethical dilemmas. Each of the sessions will use the principles of Problem Based Learning [PBL] in which all the issues are "brainstormed", learning needs defined, and then group members take responsibility for bringing agreed learning back for group presentation the following session.

Consultation videos - developing consultation skills and an understanding of various consultation models is an essential component of training. You should aim to start videoing in the first few weeks in your practice. There are several opportunities on the course to show your videos in your small groups with the benefits of constructive comment from colleagues in a safe environment. Watching different consulting styles is a great aid to personal experimentation.

Pastoral Care


Obviously the first point of contact for any day-to-day problems or concerns you have should be with your Educational Supervisor (GP Trainer). Nevertheless the ST3 course provides an additional opportunity to seek support from any of the Course Tutors. You are welcome to approach us in confidence at any stage of your training.  We are aware of the various types of help and support available to doctors both in the region and nationally; of course many issues can be eased and resolved at a much more local level. We are here to help.