GP Supervisor/Practice Manager News

Combined GP Supervisor Workshop

Western Sydney University and Sydney University Western Clinical School Departments of General Practice combined on September 25th at the Blacktown Clinical School to provide a workshop for GPs supervising our medical students. Following a delicious buffet meal, Dr Chris Ganora and Prof Jenny Reath provided an update on our teaching programs, including the transition to an MD program at WSU.

Dr Miriam Brooks spoke on Trauma-Informed Care – an under-recognised area affecting many GP patients who may present with physical and/or mental health symptoms.  Miriam described provision of a safe environment for those who have experienced previous trauma, and presented findings from her research in the Blue Mountains Women’s Health and Resource Centre. Drs Chris Ganora, Nadia Khan and Winston Lo presented on Innovative Strategies to Promote Student Learning.  They provided student feedback highlighting the value of active participation during GP attachments including parallel consulting. The evening concluded with an interactive discussion with a panel of experienced GP supervisors who shared teaching tips and strategies. We all enjoyed the learning and sharing, one attendee saying “Congratulations to the team for the very well presented teaching material today. I truly benefited.”  If you would like copies of the resources or presentations, please email s.lawrence@westernsydney.edu.au

New opportunities with the WSU MD Program

Western Sydney University, along with all other medical schools in Australia, is transitioning to an MD degree, starting with the 2019 first-year students. The Western Sydney medical degree will remain a five-year undergraduate course, with preferential entry for students from western Sydney and rural areas, and pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The emphasis on community-based and immersion learning remains, however the MD provides opportunity for improvement to our curriculum, including more academic mentoring; a student portfolio documenting learning over the five years; and a scholarly project which can involve community or clinical service, education or scientific research.  We welcome suggestions you have for projects our students could undertake in a GP setting.

With regards to GP teaching, students will start their clinical experience in a GP setting for one half-day per month for 8 months across the first and second years of the program.  We anticipate students will thrive in these early clinical attachments with opportunities to learn professionalism, communication and rapport-building skills; to apply some of the theory and history-taking and examination skills they learn on campus; and to develop a mentoring relationship with experienced GPs.  They will also be required to interview a patient with a chronic condition in each semester. Students will continue to be placed in general practices for one or two days a week for five weeks in third Year, and three days a week for five weeks in fifth Year.  If you would like to supervise a medical student at any stage of learning, or have a colleague who may be interested, Sharon would love to hear from you -  s.lawrence@westernsydney.edu.au!

GP Team visit Bathurst Rural Clinical School

The October visit to Bathurst Rural Clinical by Drs Lawrence Tan and Winston Lo provided an opportunity for collegial and collaborative meetings of educators, students and GPs. With Dr Kam Wong, Lawrence and Winston expressed gratitude, gathered feedback and identified areas for improvement. Student feedback on their clinical immersion in rural GP placements shed light on strengths (hands-on experience in rural settings) and weaknesses (lack of direction on some aspects of the placement).  Discussions with GP Supervisors over dinner were video recorded and can be shared with others.  The team were well received by the Oberon Medical Practice and Hospital team as WSU ambassadors and gathered feedback and exchanged views including some new teaching ideas. Overall, the visit was fruitful and a highlight for all parties.

Bridgeview presents at GP 18

Dr Thava Seelan provided a riveting presentation at GP18 describing his practice’s support for refugees. Dr Seelan has provided a synopsis of that presentation below.

From around 2010 as Bridgeview Medical Practice was working on establishing a well-coordinated chronic care model for the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases in western Sydney, we found ourselves suddenly thrust in the forefront of abject human misery. Australia was faced with an unprecedented influx of irregular maritime arrivals which coincided with the end of civil war in Sri Lanka, and the escalation of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Though our team was unprepared, we were equipped with cultural competence in providing care to the population we received.

We are seeing psycho-social impacts of war, the arrival process, detention and community settlement and ongoing issues of uncertain future, long term family separation and financial difficulties faced by asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Australia particularly from war-affected countries. The presentations are complex and formulating a management plan is even more challenging.

Our team has adjusted and learned to provide coordinated team-based care. We have designed a model of care including specialists, allied-health professionals, mental health professionals, community leaders, government and non-government organisations such as refugee welfare organisations and service providers. We continue to modify and update this holistic, patient-centred care model, the principles of which may be used by all health service providers caring for refugees.

A Musculoskeletal Check-up

Members of the WSU Department of General Practice have been involved in various Clinical Academic Groups (CAGs) within SPHERE (Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise) since its inception in 2016.  SPHERE is a consortium of universities, local health districts and research institutions collaborating to improve health outcomes. Penny and Jenny have been representing general practice on the Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing; Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism; and Early Life Determinants of Health CAGs, while Lawrence Tan has been helping with the Musculoskeletal CAG.

Lawrence finds the musculoskeletal stream values primary care practitioners highly, as we care for the bulk of patients with musculoskeletal conditions. They are looking for opportunities to partner with GPs in developing useful updates on common musculoskeletal problems. Lawrence provides a GP perspective on their research proposals, and has worked with musculoskeletal experts in Southwest Sydney including rheumatologists, physiotherapists and GPs to write two cases for the RACGP CHECK publication in September this year – one on the non-operative management of knee osteoarthritis (Gibson K, Naylor J, Schabrun S, Tan L. “Jeffrey has joint pain.” Check Independent Learning Program for GPs, 2018; 553:9-16) and the other on second-fracture prevention in men with osteoporosis (Hassett G, Kamalaraj N, Kelly A, Mahananda D, Tan L, Thakkar V. “Colin has a Colle’s.” Check Independent Learning Program for GPs, 2018; 553:17-22).

We hope these cases will be a helpful resource for GPs and GP registrars on managing these common problems in general practice.

Student placement agreement and new placement system

From 2019 Western Sydney University will be implementing Student Placement Agreements with GP practices taking WSU medical students. This agreement sets out the roles and responsibilities of the university and the placement organisation for all student placements over a period of time – likely to be 5 years. For the 100 practices taking nursing and other WSU students who have already signed such an agreement, you do not need to do anything more. For those who have not signed an agreement, Sharon will be sending this for sign off as part of the placement arrangements in the new year.

In another innovation in 2019 we will be rolling out the new placement system - InPlace.  Sharon is currently entering Supervisor details into InPlace. Once this process is completed there will be a trial run with one placement rotation early in the new year to see how it works before rolling it out across the board.  This system reduces our manual workload however GP Supervisors will receive their placement notification from Sharon in the usual way and we are able to over-ride the system if there are any concerns about placements.

MiC & Yr 5 PIP Process

PIP payments are calculated quarterly which means there is a lag time of approximately six (6) months between the teaching sessions and payments.  Claim forms will be accepted for processing up to a maximum for seven (7) months as outlined in the table below.

PIP forms and how they are processed changed from the end of 2018. These changes are summarised below:

• The university will complete and sign the university certification section of the Teaching Payment claim form before the student attends the teaching session at the practice. This will be sent to the practice with the confirmation of student placement letter. It will be dated with the last day of the rotation. This signed and stamped form must be printed and completed by the practice.
• Once the student has completed their training sessions, both the student and the GP Supervisor are required to sign the claim form to verify the training sessions have occurred.
• The owner/authorised signatory of the practice then completes the “Practice declaration” section and submits the completed and signed form to the Australian Government Department of Human Services for payment as per the instructions on the form.
• The practice must provide the student with a copy of the completed paperwork on the final day of placement.
• Some corporate practices may not be able to sign PIP forms – these forms may be processed centrally.
• Practices must retain a copy of the teaching payment claims for 6 years.

For any questions please contact Vicki Bradley on 02 4620 3896 or v.bradley@westernsydney.edu.au. For more information, please contact the PIP Helpline on 1800 222 032, or visit humanservices.gov.au