Pairs of students will be expected to spend 2 full days (usually from 10am to 4pm) in the same GP practice, experiencing a wide range of activities and shadowing different members of the primary care team.

We hope that these placements will deepen the students' appreciation and understanding of primary care at this early stage of their training.

With the current pandemic, we have made adaptations so that these sessions can be held remotely and they have worked extremely well. We will continue to support GP teachers in doing this if needed.

Pairs of students will be expected to spend 2 full days (usually from 10am to 4pm) in the same GP practice, experiencing a wide range of activities and shadowing different members of the primary care team.

We hope that these placements will deepen the students' appreciation and understanding of primary care at this early stage of their training.

With the current pandemic, we have made adaptations so that these sessions can be held remotely and they have worked extremely well. We will continue to support GP teachers in doing this if needed.

Third year students spend a full academic year in the same practice, giving you a chance to get to know a small group of students (usually 4) really well.

Until December students attend each Tuesday or Thursday morning as they build the foundations of their clinical practice through a series of cases. From January until May, they attend a full day Tuesday or Thursday as they work through a series of modules. A comprehensive Teacher Study Guide supports each session.

In their 4th year, students undertake a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) which includes one session a week in General Practice. Students attend in pairs or fours and follow a panel of patients through the year.

From September until March students attend on a Wednesday or Friday morning. This has been designed to allow practices to teach both Year 3 and Year 4 students.

Currently, final year students are attached to a General Practice for a 3-week placement.  From September 2021, final year students in most areas of the region will now have two assistantships blocks at the same practice; a 3-week block in the Autumn and a 4-week block in the Spring.

In their assistantships, students will spend most of their time consulting patients; progressing from sit-in and parallel surgeries, towards less hands-on supervised surgeries (conducting a consultation with the GP observing). Throughout both Assistantships, students will learn about some of the core principles of General Practice.

GP tutors are central to the delivery of the Accelerated MBBS programme. These graduate entry students do an extended 1st year in which they cover the content of the first 2 years of the MBBS degree programme.

They engage with a greater proportion of self-directed learning than the 1st and 2nd year students on the 5 year programme.

The delivery of teaching uses a problem first, case-led approach. The GP tutors facilitate the learning and our generalist experience is vital. It ensures the learning is at the right level and to contextualise the learning for the students.

Please contact Andrew Chaytor for more information.