Chair Reports -
February 2025

These initial few weeks may feel familiar for all of us supporting learners in general practice, clinicians and practice managers alike; yet there are always new things to learn and adopt, and new learning needs to cater for. Whether you are part of a team embarking on supervision for the first time or working at a seasoned training site, no doubt you will find something of value in GPSA’s vast repository of best practice resources – developed with input from fellow GP supervisors and practice managers, and designed to assist in enhancing the placement experience for you as much as for your learner and/ or trainee.

This year will bring us challenges and opportunities in equal measure, which is something you will likely be expecting and preparing to harness in your supervision and training support roles. GPSA will continue to be here providing member assistance, support and representation, both at a national and individual level, and facilitating peer connectivity and two-way engagement via the GPSA Community desktop platform and mobile app.

Finding ways to build on the services we offer our 10,300+ members will be one of the many objectives of our annual Board Strategic Planning Weekend at the start of the month. This will be our first chance to come together since the AGM at the end of November, enabling us to welcome our newest Board member Dr Sara Fergusson, an experienced rural GP and fellow IMG, who is already greatly respected for her significant contributions to the sector as both a GP supervisor and medical educator with RVTS. We are keen to harness the valuable experience and insights Sara brings with her, augmenting the tremendous team we have in Drs Frank Maldari and Nick Tellis, Mrs Leonie Chamberlain and re-elected Directors Drs Candice Baker and Kate Manderson – the latter having chosen to continue providing stability and lending their expertise to the organisation and our goals.

The advocacy goals we will be building on at this year’s Strategic Planning session include:

1. Increasing recognition of the vital role GP supervisors play in perpetuating primary healthcare;
2. Ensuring GP supervisors are remunerated for their clinical, pastoral and educational oversight of all learners across the pipeline;
3. Strengthening standards for GP supervision across the educational spectrum; and
4. Enhancing consistent sector-wide supports to empower GPs and practice teams to perform their supervision role with confidence.

So what’s new exactly? No doubt you will have noticed a fair bit of consistency here with our advocacy focus in 2023 and 2024, but we are now immersed in an election year. Being able to cut through the noise from competing interests is essential in a year like this, and is typically more effective when the message replacing that noise is clear, concise, and broadly supported. To this end, GPSA will expand our work with sector partners and stakeholders on areas of alignment in advocacy, as well as in training support and research. Our ability to co-exist and collaborate across this sector remains our strength, especially when our representation of coalface participants in GP training provides such a unique and valuable lens for policymakers and funders. Critical thinking and conflict resolution are key to ensuring common goals and progress are achieved for our profession and the community.

I leave you with another word that has recently caught my attention: siddhi. This is a word which can mean accomplishment, attainment or success – yet it embodies the journey many of us have made via study, practice and learning to become profficient in our roles. When we go on to become supervisors of those who seek to achieve the same, in this journey we find the joy of facilitating siddhi in others by transferring our knowledge and passion onto them.

If you’ve been reading these Chair Reports across the last 12 months, by now you’d know I am also fond of dropping an appropriate movie quote into my commentary! I hope you will appreciate this month’s quote from Batman’s Commissioner James Gordon:
“You’re going to make a difference. A lot of times it won’t be huge; it won’t be visible even. But it will matter just the same.”