The tutor training session for Year 3 took place on Tuesday 3rd September 2024 at 2pm. The session recording and ppt are and available here.

Year 3 GP Tutor Update

video recording tutor update 03092024

In academic year 24-25 students will have 12 Wednesday mornings in a GP practice in either semester 1 or 2. This is an increase from 6 sessions in 23-24 academic year and reflects how much these sessions are valued. Students will be in groups of 6, and you will have the same students for the 12 sessions. The students will be spending the rest of the week in a hospital in the same Trust area. £355 per session - 12 sessions each semester - £4,260 per term (an increase of £105 per session compared to 23-24) 

 You can find lots of useful information in the  Year 3 GP tutor and student guide 24-25

The students will have access to Virtual Primary care. You can find information on how to login to the website in the document below.

VPC information for students 24-25 You need a QUB email account to access the resources.

Here is the VPC Capsule Speaking Clinically guide with accompanying resources that the students can use

QUB Guidance on Home Visiting for Medical Students 

Key activities on placement 

• Students should get the chance to speak to patients, but the focus is on their communication skills. These can be pre-arranged "cold cases" such as CDM or complex co-morbidities 
• Ideally students should all get the chance to do at least 1 Home visit (though not mandatory). It could be to a care home. 
• Students can do practical tasks such as ECGs, taking blood, dipping urines, etc 
• Students can phone patients e.g.  to check how someone is post hospital admission (holistic conversation and gathering information),to check ref medication compliance or to notify of a change in meds 
• to give health promotion advice e.g. raised cholesterol 

Structure of the Wednesday morning 

• The students should be met at agreed time (can be 9 or if easier can be 9:15 or 9:30) 
• They should be there til 1pm 
• Ideally 12-1pm should be the group teaching/feedback slot. The 6 get together and at least 1 presents a case. The others can share what they have seen that day 
• Teaching topic can be linked to something clinical they saw or perhaps something around how the Gp team works 

FAQs 

• The 12-1pm teaching slot can be rotated between the GPs  
• You can take students in semester 1 or 2 or ideally both 
• 6 students all at once may sound daunting, but they should work in pairs and ideally rotate around activities (a bit like the year 4 programme before C25 introduced) 
• There is a model timetable with lots of suggested activities, but it can be adapted to suit the practice in terms of who is working on a Wednesday and room availability. I have developed it based on feedback from those who have been taking year 3 
• Students can also do self-directed stuff (for short periods) and it is helpful to share them out across the team (PM, PBP, PN. MDT if available) 
• There is very little in terms of admin, sign off and it can be shared between GPs 
• There is no preparation required by the GP in advance or curriculum to cover formally 
• If you are taking year 5 students in block 3, they finish on 24th Feb and so there would only be 3 Wednesdays when they would overlap. They could help with Year 3 teaching 
• The year 3 students finish 2 weeks earlier than year 4 or 5 students in December 

What worked well from Tutors (all feedback from Autumn 2023) 

• Sitting in during face to face or telephone consultation with GP 
• History taking by phone in adjacent room from GP triage list after consent 
• Suitable patient brought in or planned home visit for longer discussion 
• Consulting with pre-selected patients COLD (recent hospital admissions or investigations) 
• “shadow” treatment room nurse to take bloods, ECGs 
• Discuss blood results and what to do next 
• Discuss safeguarding and importance of record keeping 
• “shadow” HCA to take bloods 
• “shadow” pharmacist (including inhaler technique, PFR) 
• “shadow” health visitor doing vaccinations, child health surveillance 
• Visit healthy living centre (with other senior students) 
• Time with practice manager to get overview of patient triage/care navigation 

For more information or enquiries please email louise.sands@qub.ac.uk