GPRA - General Practice Registrars Australia

Things you need to start your GP terms

What books & equipment will I need?

Equipment:

Your own stethoscope
You may need your own auroscope/ ophthalmoscope
Some practices may have wall units or equipment in the rooms
Consider – ear thermometer for kids, magnifying glasses (Most practices have these)
Doctor’s Bag: Some practices may have one for you to use

See the GPRA website for advice on how to make up your own.

Books & resources:
These are all optional. Your practice may already have these or have it online.

John Murtagh’s General Practice & Patient Education sheets
Your favourite dermatology atlas or website
Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine
Some websites to help with GP cases :
www.fpnotebook.com and www.emedicine.com
Australian Medicines Handbook, MIMS, Paediatric Pharmacopeia
Therapeutic Guidelines (especially Antibiotic)
Medical & Surgical Specialists Referral Directory (ask your practice)
Orthopaedic fracture management book
GP journals & newspapers – Medicine Today,
Australian Doctor & Medical Observer

Registration forms are available from the Australasian Medical Publishing Co (02) 9562 6666.
Free subscription.

www.ampco.com.au
Australian Family Physician, Check – Self assessment monthly magazine. Available as part of RACGP membership.
Australian Prescriber, RADAR. Produced by the National Prescribing Service Ltd www.nps.org.au

When do I start my term?
GP terms are six months each when done full time. They tend to run mid-January to mid-July and mid-July to mid- January.

*** NOTE: GP term dates may differ from RMO hospital dates. Make sure you have arranged leave to start GP term on time.***

What forms do I need?
Your RTP should help you with this list. In summary:

Application for an HIC provider number
Application for Recognition as a General Practitioner (GPET)
Medical Indemnity – you must have your own indemnity to cover GP practice, indemnity for hospital work is a different scenario.
State Medical Board registration
Employment Contract & Confirmation of Employment Agreement. *** This is an important, legally binding contract about your hours & pay. Refer to the National Minimum Terms & Conditions document for guidance (in your membership pack) or go to www.gpra.org.au

What organizations should I join?
All are optional and this list is not exhaustive:

General Practice Registrars Australia (GPRA) - National GP Registrar representative group. Free membership available! Join at www.gpra.org.au or speak to your RLO who will give you our membership form.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) – you must be a member prior to exam enrolment. Joining earlier has member benefits e.g. subscription to Check Magazine. Go to www.racgp.org.au.
Australian Medical Association (AMA) – contact your state branch. For Contact details go to www.ama.com.au.
Your local Division of General Practice – find out who to contact from your practice or RTP or go to: www. adgp.com.au Divisions directory.
Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM): Go to www.acrrm.org.au.
Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA): Telephone 02 62739303 or go to www.rdaa.com.au
Australian Indigenous Doctors Association (AIDA), a professional organisation for indigenous medical students and graduates: Go to www.aida.org.au.

Read this far and still have questions?
People you can contact for help & more info
• GPRA: enquiries@gpra.com.au or telephone 1300 131 198
• Your RLO and RTP

Future GP Registrars in hospital terms
How to prepare for general practice.

While in hospital terms it is easy to be occupied with the usual resident duties of caring for too many patients, constantly being paged and being required in many places at once. Often little time is left to think about how your hospital experience can help you as a GP in the future.

Here are some points to help you make the most of your hospital experience as a future GP Registrar.

Choose terms that will increase your knowledge for general practice e.g. emergency, general medicine, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynaecology, surgery and anaesthetics (for rural practice).
Ensure you have completed (or will do) a hospital term in paediatrics.
Ask nurses to teach you skills that will be needed in general practice that you may not have been required to do as a resident e.g. giving vaccinations (especially to children) and dressing wounds.
Discuss the referral process with consultants. What do they like in a referral? What tests should be ordered prior to referral? How urgently do they need to see particular cases?
Think about what information is useful on a referral letter sent with a patient to Emergency.
Learn procedural skills that may be useful in general practice e.g. joint injections, removing skin lesions, biopsy, chest drains.
Identify people who may be useful information sources when you are working in the community e.g. hospital registrars, consultants, CNCs.
Take particular notice of writing comprehensive and prompt discharge summaries, and do not be afraid to call GPs to tell them their patients are coming home.
Document any training and keep any certification you get in Advanced Life Support.
Applications for GP training require three structured referee reports. These reports then form the basis of your ranking in the interview process. How you perform as a hospital doctor therefore may have an impact on your GP training location options later on.
If you are planning to apply for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) ensure you have documentation/end of term reports from the employing hospital outlining your experience. To apply for RPL to reduce your training time (by a maximum of 12 months) or to use some training time to pursue other educational interests you must provide a log of educational activities, feedback and formative assessment documents and any other relevant documents. Also, seek out supervisors who can act as your referees.

Think about joining the GPRA Mentors program. To find out more! mentors@gpra.com.au

You can always contact GPRA directly on enquiries@gpra.com.au, Telephone:1300 131 198 or check out our website: www.gpra.org.au

Remember: applications for Australian General Practice Training open in June each year. See the website www.agpt.com.au for further details. Don’t miss out!

Part time training
Part- time training is often considered as the only option for those of us that are having babies or raising small children. However, part–time training is an attractive option for many registrars, allowing them to take up other opportunities such as becoming an RLO or an academic registrar.

The flexibility of General Practice when it comes to the hours that we work is one of the reasons that many people choose it as their career path and the training program has
the same flexibility that many of us look forward too.

When thinking about part-time training consider the following:

All components of the training program can be undertaken on a part-time basis.
You need to apply for part-time training and have it approved before you begin working part-time.
Part-time is considered to be between 3 and 8 sessions a week. A session being between 3 to 4 hours long.
Minimum hours are 10.5 hours a week over 2 days.
You should receive the same amount of practice based teaching during a term as a registrar completing it full time. For example, a basic part-time registrar should have 1 1/2 hours a week over 12 months and a full time registrar 3 hours a week for 6 months.
You must attend educational activities that are the equivalent to full time registrars.
The majority of training cannot occur on weekends.

The RACGP states that General Practice experience gained while working part-time is valuable and that it is likely to be worth more than an estimation of time alone would indicate, this is why acceleration of part-time training to ‘half-time’ training is available. It basically means that in order to have a 12 month term counted as the equivalent of a six months full time you will need to ‘accelerate’ your training with a set of log diaries.
These log diaries show that the number and range of patients seen are giving you adequate experience.

Many of us are keen to complete the training program in the shortest possible time. Part-time training not only allows us to have greater time with our families and other activities outside of medicine, it also provides us with a greater exposure to educational opportunities over a longer period.

Working for two or three days a week could be just the change you need.