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From the Chair...

Unlocking hidden potential through collaboration

As we head into the last month of 2024, I can’t help but reflect on GPSA’s mantra throughout this hectic year:

Collaboration, not competition, is the key to unlocking hidden potential.

As a Board made up of seven very unique individuals working together to support the hardworking GPSA team for the benefit of the Australian GP supervision community, we started 2024 with a commitment to ensuring that GPSA continues to uphold its values, mission and vision. We have held firm to that commitment.

As a Board made up of seven very unique individuals working together to support the hardworking GPSA team for the benefit of the Australian GP supervision community, we started 2024 with a commitment to ensuring that GPSA continues to uphold its values, mission and vision. We have held firm to that commitment.

A highlight for not just GPSA but the sector more broadly this year was the signing of the historic MoU with GPRA – whose members today are, we sincerely hope, our members in the very near future! This MOU’s cementing of collaborative intent has created a framework for our two independent organisations to focus on points of alignment and explore opportunities together to maximise the benefit for our members. This approach has increased the impact of our joint advocacy in areas of enhancing the attraction to GP training; system and structural improvements for registrars, practices and supervisors; expanding the role and visibility of SLOs and RLOs; optimising the outcomes and minimising the unintended consequences of State and Commonwealth initiatives from incentives to WPP to SEM; and much more. We look forward to building on these collaborative efforts together in 2025.

GPSA remains the independent voice for all GPs and RGs involved in supervision and clinical teaching across the sector and the pipeline, and for the practice managers whose contribution extends beyond administration to enabling high quality general practice placements into the future. An organisation’s values are wholly shaped by its members, and this year we have expanded the opportunities for both our clinician members – those who are practice principals as well as those who, like me, are non-owner supervisors – and also practice managers to play a bigger role in shaping our direction in education, research, advocacy and operational supports. To this end we have elevated channels for engagement with us through the GPSA Community, our ENGAGE annual survey, topic-driven working groups, Q&A style webinars, and our more traditional email and phone enquiry options.

As the Achievements Snapshot in our recently-released FY2023-24 Annual Report suggests, this attention to engagement has ensured that our strategic direction has faithfully represented our members’ needs and priorities this year. Another prominent indicator of this is the record level of participation in the decisions made at this year’s AGM – with 485 eligible members contributing to the voting process.

Leading up to the AGM on Thursday 28th, November was another busy month as Team GPSA represented and networked with our members at two of the five sector conferences: the Australia New Zealand Prevocational Medical Education Forum (ANZPMEF) and the annual RACGP conference, GP24. Our CEO Ms Carla Taylor and Education Manager Dr Simon Morgan explored opportunities for collaboration and growth at ANZPMEF in Darwin; and Carla joined me along with our COO Mrs Leonie Chamberlain and Research & Policy Director A/Prof Samia Toukhsati at GP24, which again provided an excellent opportunity to interact with many of our members – and additionally to congratulate the RACGP award winners including GP Supervisor of the Year Dr Meike Flore, winner of the Dr Jeremy Bunker Award for Outstanding Achievement in General Practice Training Ms Lily Thomas, and General Practice of the Year Growlife Medical: which is also a training practice.

Both of these November conferences offered opportunities to hear about what will be expected of supervisors as the AMC framework for prevocational training in the community is operationalised – this being an area GPSA has been active in for the past 12 months, as was solidified in our decision earlier this year to collocate our head office with the Victorian Postgraduate Medical Council (PMCV). GPSA continues to work with sector stakeholders in this space to increase positive, sustainable outcomes and minimise duplication and red tape for our members as the AMC and MDANZ policies push larger numbers of medical students and junior doctors into general practice over the next few years.

At the GP24 prevocational session, the common theme from the audience was that, while supervisors are keen to contribute in any way possible, there is a precarious balancing act between providing clinical care to patients and appropriate input to learners across the educational spectrum. This is definitely the case in the supervision of AGPT registrars too, but sadly we find that the training providers in this Commonwealth-supported pathway have failed to build suitable efficiencies into the requirements imposed on the supervisors at the coalface… without whom there would be no training program.

A prime concern for our members (alongside the impact of current placement processes), and one that drove many discussions at GP24, is the confusion and burden created by the College’s AGPT Supervisor Professional Development (SPD) requirements. In an attempt to collaborate on this issue with a view to preventing the fallout of frustration and fear that has infused the supervisor community in recent months, GPSA has repeatedly offered to work with the RACGP to create clearer and more logical communications about SPD, and to address the absence of asynchronous options – which are typically what busy supervisors need so that they can successfully manage this requirement on top of that precarious balancing act of managing patient care and learner/ trainee supervision! While headway is very slowly being made in this regard, it is still left to GPSA to remind the sector of the value of, and critical role played by, our members.

On a brighter note, at GP24 we had strong interest in our Consultation board game, largely as a Christmas gift for future GPs and educators across the educational spectrum! We also had a lot of enquiries about a research project that’s building on a GPSA study undertaken in 2021-22. Prior to joining the Board, I participated in that earlier project, and am delighted to have the opportunity to further this as a participant whose input will guide the development of resources to attract, support and retain women in GP supervision. Two co-designed programs – by women, for women – will be trialled in 2025: one an orientation program providing a suite of multi-modal resources tailored to women GPs and designed to build confidence and provide clarity about the supervisory role; the other, which GPSA is calling the ‘Women supervisors’ CIRCLE’, provides safe spaces for women GP supervisors to share stories, learn from one another, and build strong connections. You can find out more about the programs here, read the Explanatory Statement and express your interest in our new “Women supervisors’ CIRCLE” program.

While GPSA continues to grow each year, we aim to concurrently grow the sector and community’s appreciation of our members. Please continue to support us, and encourage your colleagues and peers to join this incredible community of practice as well: a community that meets my definition of “GURU” – a Sanskrit word meaning ‘mentor, guide, expert or master of their craft’. Just as this word encompasses the principle of passing on wisdom to the next generation, you as supervisors are the key to perpetuating general practice as a specialty and primary healthcare as the core of our nation’s health system.

Any GP supervisor is a guru. It is time to own it and champion it, for it is a privilege and, with the support GPSA offers and fights for on your behalf, it can be a true joy too.

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to December newsletter

Date reviewed: 02 December 2024

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From the Chair...

The 4 R's... Recognition, Respect, Reward, Remuneration

Having drafted this report on Garamilla country while at RMA24, I would like to start with an acknowledgement to the people of the Larrakia nation, and pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land on which I am and from which you may be at the time of reading. With gratitude I acknowledge the welcome I received here in Darwin, and to Australia where I have lived now for almost 10 years. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. Their sovereignty has never been ceded.

These words have been so much a part of my many interactions and conversations during my time in the Northern Territory for the ACRRM and RDAA conference.

The conference ended yesterday with the graduation ceremony for the new ACRRM Fellows, and what a celebration it was! Imagine this – an auditorium with the stage lit up in green, the banner with green and gold, and the current ACRRM President plus eight of his predecessors all present on stage. That is how we respect those who came before us and inspire the same for those who Fellowed on the day. Words of courage, wisdom and inspiration were shared; there were tears, cheers and jubilation; there was joy in the room. It is so very important to remember that feeling of belonging and inclusion, the actions conveying this even more than the rousing words.

I’ve had so many rich conversations that it’s a challenge to pick just a few, yet these three stood out for obvious reasons:

  1. Dr CE, a retiring supervisor from NSW and GPSA member, generously shared his mother’s wisdom with me in the context of having had a wonderful time supervising and teaching in his career… The only things worth doing in life – and continuing to do – are those that bring you joy. This served to remind me that it’s important to seek and receive wisdom (combination of knowledge and lived experience) from those who came before you.
  2. Dr NR, who has almost finished training after first being on ACRRM’s Independent Pathway and is now on RVTS, wants to continue paying it forward by becoming a rural supervisor. This remarkable individual bought her practice as a registrar because she would not have been able to continue her rural training in place otherwise… Did I mention she is an Australian GP who trained overseas?! She remains committed to serving the rural community who so graciously accepted her care and serves to remind us that our underlying goal should be to inspire every new Fellow to be a future supervisor.
  3. Dr JJ, who is currently training in a rural post, asked me how his supervisor gets remunerated. We then discussed how he is an experienced clinician and the relationship he has with his supervisor – who is a Fellowed GP with fewer years of experience than him – is one of collaborative learning. There appeared to be in that description immense mutual respect, little hierarchy, and a transfer of power via learning; and my key takeaway was to remain curious for longer. We agreed that not all rewards come in the form of remuneration and shared the firm view that all GPiT supervisors need to be remunerated as per the National Consistent Payment (NCP) framework in
    recognition of their contribution of effort and generosity.

There were so many more conversations, catch ups with old friends, and potential new alliances too.

I do wonder if respect, recognition, and reward start with self-first. This brings me to the question I seem to ask my fellow GPs the most as GPSA Chair:

Apart from registrars, do you supervise medical students or prevocational doctors, or host other learners in your practice?

The answer to this is quite often “yes, I do” – far more often than you would think – and is followed by the somewhat reluctant self-identification as a supervisor. For some reason the supervisor label is rarely self-applied when our learners are on any level of the educational continuum other than vocational trainee. And I know that there are many who believe that supervisors, mentors, and coaches are not the same either, each with their own distinct definitions and functions. My supervisor was my mentor too, so while I don’t expect every supervisor to take on the role of mentoring, if that’s what your student, prevocational GPiT or registrar needs, it may be what you unconsciously end up doing. Let us own it, and wear the badge of supervisor proudly even when our learners are not yet on a vocational training pathway, so we can make this part of our professional identity.

Irrespective of what we call it, these are roles we take on through the values of curiosity, compassion and generosity. We grow ourselves as we help others progress. And then there is the sheer enjoyment we can experience as supervisors on those rare occasions – one such occasion being the GPSA Games workshop our Education Manager, Dr Simon Morgan, led at RMA24.

There really is something very special about an auditorium full of supervisors and MEs laughing out loud alongside medical students and registrars… over an educational tool no less! Together we had the chance to play and observe each other’s reaction to Consultation! The Board Game and GPSA’s online version of GP Synergy’s Clinical Reasoning Game which will be available as a mobile app by Christmas. The power of laughter cannot be ignored, but one medical student put us all to shame in their reflection on the power of vulnerability as the great leveller, having seen the experienced clinicians and educators in their group owning up to the fact they were struggling with some of the knowledge questions just as the student was at the opposite end of the educational continuum.

We inspire each other and we challenge ourselves to do better as was evident in the room when Dr Samia Toukhsati presented the GPCLE tool in her RMA workshop, and I found so many supervisors suggesting we should raise the expected minimum standards for ourselves in terms of the quality we aspire to deliver.

After this workshop and the many sessions and posters I saw on AI, a rather apt quote from yet another favourite movie came to mind, spoken by Neytiri in the 2009 James Cameron classic ‘Avatar’:

“All energy is only borrowed, and one day you have to give it back.”

 

GPSA will continue to be the home for all aspiring, current and past supervisors.

We will continue to innovate, enable and advocate for supervisors, supervision teams and training sites.

We will continue to influence and improve the journey and experience of any learner who is in general practice or aspiring to have a generalist career in the community – generalism being defined as “a philosophy of care distinguished by a commitment to the breadth of practice within each discipline and collaboration with the larger health care team in order to respond to patient and community needs”.

Please join our mission, and if you have other colleagues who you feel would benefit from being GPSA members please invite them as well so they can share in this community of practice. Let us join forces to make what’s already good better, and transfer our power along with our passion while acknowledging our privileges.

Let us aim to preserve human connections and the learning communities we are all consciously or unconsciously part of and contributing to. Your wisdom is incredibly valuable and deserves to be shared, for in sharing it will grow.

I look forward to more conversations with you at other conferences coming up this year.

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to November newsletter

Date reviewed: 31 October 2024

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From the Chair...

Trees and leaves, facts and fiction… and then some!

Have you ever looked carefully at a leaf? If you examine its veins, you can see the imprint of the tree from which it fell. This is nature’s way of reminding us that what we do today can leave an impression that lasts long into the future.

While I would never otherwise refer to my esteemed colleagues as trees (nor our trainees as falling leaves), the metaphor here is clear… GP supervisors do more than just influencing the learner’s mind in a myriad of ways, we also shape their fundamental structure as amazing clinicians and (hopefully) dedicated supervisors for the future.

I don’t know about you, but stopping to consider what my impact might be on my medical students and GPs-in training is a crucial aspect of my reflective practice as both a GP and a supervisor. So much of our role seems to be about the passing of that invisible baton: inviting learners to look backward in order to take hold of our knowledge and expertise. In truth, we are at our best when we can keep those learners forward-facing, empowering them to create their own legacy and make general practice what they, and our future communities, need it to be. From metaphors and analogies to movie references, this brings to mind a quote from another of my favourite characters from fiction, Neo (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix: “A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible…”

Time flies quickly and there are now just a handful of months left in 2024, spring giving way to summer – but not before that in-between season that straddles the two: the GP / RG networking season!

Although I am looking forward to many interactions and conversations when we get to Darwin for the AAPM conference, RMA and the ANZ Prevocational Medical Forum, followed closely by Perth for GP24 and Adelaide for PRIDoC, for some like me, this networking season is already underway! It kicked off for me at the Remote Vocational Training Scheme (RVTS) 24.2 Brisbane workshop, where I joined a panel of experienced supervisors charged with giving current and future peers the benefit of our combined wisdom. It was a joy to share some of GPSA’s values and wares with the group, and to see familiar faces including four members of the national SLO Advisory Council. 

Remote supervision remains key to supporting registrars in rural areas, and what came through the most for me was the supervisor’s role in ensuring a safe journey for their trainees. Seeing so many new supervisors who have previously been registrars with RVTS is a testament to the success of this program, and the average age in the room was hearteningly low too. 

Moving onto wider discussions, I thought I would share with you some of my learning and unlearning over the last 10 months in my term as GSPA Chair. It can be tricky to separate facts from fiction when we are constantly being assaulted by so much new information…

Fiction Fact
GPSA is part of or under the umbrella of another sector peak or organisation
GPSA is an independent organisation and the only peak for supervision teams and training sites
GPSA’s relevance in the sector has diminished since the transition to College-led training
GPSA remains the only voice for some 10,000 contributors to GP training, including current and prospective supervisors, practice managers, practice owners and medical educators

GPSA is College-agnostic and has a growing membership of supervisors and clinical teachers including those who teach medical students and GPs-in-training across all training pathways and programs

GPSA facilitates communication and networking across our 3 distinct member cohorts – supervisors, practice managers and practice owners

GPSA is the sole provider of phone and email support, online education, innovative apps and games, over 1,000 open-access resources and administrative templates with a specific GP training lens

GPSA is an accredited CPD provider for RACGP, ACRRM and AAPM
GPSA only serves a purpose in our education offering, has no involvement in research, advocacy or policy, and only engages within a narrow range of topics or issues
GPSA is committed to nurturing the passion and values that underpin high-quality GP training at the coalface

GPSA is a driver of quality, innovation and sustainability

GPSA focuses on supporting our members’ confidence, well-being and satisfaction in their supervision role

GPSA’s advocacy and policy agenda is driven entirely by our members, who regularly and actively engage through research, direct communication with the GPSA team and Board, and participation in a robust virtual community of practice
GPSA is unable to keep up with the changing needs of the sector
GPSA is focused on supporting and sustaining current and future supervisors and training sites to ensure incoming medical students and GPs-in-training have reliable ongoing access to high quality experiences in community practice
The NTCER is out of touch with sector needs and not legally enforceable
GPSA and GPRA, with a combined membership of 30,000, are jointly responsible for the NTCER, which is both a legally-enforceable vehicle for the employment of GPs-in-training and a template for practice-registrar relationships across all pathways and vocational training situations including SEM and ADF
The surplus of (AGPT) accredited supervisors and training sites makes concerns and needs expressed by those with registrars irrelevant
Supervision at the coalface constitutes up to 90% of the GP-in-training’s learning and is about our future, our legacy, and maintaining the value that general practice delivers to the wider health care sector

While working with the Commonwealth and sector partners to develop new opportunities for accredited supervisors/ sites without AGPT registrars, GPSA works tirelessly to represent those who feel powerless in a system that relies on them without acknowledging their changing needs
Supervision is unremunerated as it has no benefit to the learner’s educational needs, contributing to nothing other than workforce development
GPSA is actively engaging with other sector peaks and stakeholders in a meaningful, effective and collaborative manner to address the current lack of recognition and respect for the single most important component of GP training

I am confident that our existing members will identify with the facts and not the fiction in this table, and I hope this goes some way to providing potential and future members with a better understanding and clarity around this too. 

GPSA is our members.

Our values, generosity and adaptability are a reflection of yours.

I continue to speak on your behalf at the many tables where decisions are being made around general practice and primary care training and employment structures and strategies. Please keep sharing your views with us, reaching out to me and to your peers in the vibrant GPSA Community.

And, with less than 2 months to go, please save the date for our upcoming Annual General Meeting: Thursday 28th November 2024, 7.30pm AEDT. We would really love to see you there with us (online!).

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to October newsletter

Date reviewed: 30 September 2024

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From the Chair...

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Skill is knowing how to do it. Virtue is doing it."

Thomas Jefferson’s definition of wisdom or “sagacity” (hopefully this word has you thinking of a sage who has guided you along your personal journey) highlights the need to combine knowledge and experience, knowing and doing.
In Inuit tradition, developing wisdom is the aim of teaching; and a person is wise when they can discern what needs to be done and do it successfully without being told to do so.

This month’s newsletter includes an article showcasing the sagacity of GPSA’s Deputy Chair, Dr Frank Maldari, whose insights have been fundamental to the GPSA Board throughout and prior to my term as a Director: please take a few minutes to enjoy this read. As an experienced GP, supervisor and mentor, Frank has supported peers and GPs-in-training in many ways – including through his role as SLO – and I for one am most grateful for his guidance and support.

The past month has again been a flurry of activities, with ongoing focus on bringing to our members and the sector a revised NTCER which is future-focused, sustainable, and updated with contemporaneous legislative requirements. We have been working through this extensive process with GPRA with the goal of having the new version of the NTCER Agreement ready for the 2025.1 placement processes. An immense amount of work has gone into this endeavour, and I would like to thank every GPSA member who has contributed to the review process via the survey, working parties and our negotiation party.

Another focus which created an extra bit of work for Carla and me was the College Presidential elections. We had a great time interviewing all of the candidates for RACGP and ACRRM to give our members a bit more insight into their views on the role of supervisors and practice-based GP training, and I am genuinely excited about the future for both GP specialty Colleges given the passion we uncovered. I would of course like to take this opportunity to extend my congratulations to Dr Michael Wright on his election to RACGP President, and Dr Rod Martin on his election to ACRRM President. I look forward to working and actively collaborating with both of these experienced GPs. This serves as a reminder that the election season for our sector is not yet over, with other representative roles for organisations coming up soon, and GPSA’s AGM and Board election at the end of November.

The GPSA education team continue to provide education support to our members and the most recent webinars that were of particular interest for me were around two integral parts of training that have been retained into current times – providing feedback and how to make the most of ECT visits. The former was also of interest as I had seen Dr Davies present her RACGP Future Leaders project at the GP22 conference, in the session where I too had been a contributor and was keen to learn more. The latter was designed to help integrate the roles of both supervisor and ECT visitor that I personally find very rewarding. I hope you were able to attend and if not, they remain accessible on GPSA’s YouTube channel.

I continue to support additional collaboration with other GP-focussed education and research partners to continue to bring you education and learning opportunities which keep your knowledge up to date and allow you to best share your wisdom with the trainees you support in your learning practices.

The most recent wisdom on learning I have seen is quite that highest form of learning in unlearning. We have seen some robust discussions and conversations around use of innovative technology including generative AI in our practices and certainly initial feedback looks positive in terms of improving quality of interaction with our patients and managing cognitive and administrative burden in our daily tasks. While the RACGP has published its guidance to all its members in this regard, we will be seeking further clarification on how this might specifically translate into the training context. In the meantime, I would recommend utilising a combination of an appraisal of your expertise with a generative AI tool, your trainee’s foundational competency in consultation skills, their willingness to use AI, the value they may ascribe to it, and then assessing its safety through discussion with them: as we would in many similar situations in our clinical practice in terms of shared decision making. For some of us, it is an opportunity to evaluate our learning skills as much as our teaching and supervision skills until more guidance becomes available. Patient and registrar safety remains paramount.

The GPSA team and I are looking forward to the last quarter of this year as we will be present at and contributing at many of the conferences where we are expecting to see a lot of our members – AAPM, RMA, Prevocational Forum, GP24, AIDA (PriDOC). I am always keen to meet you and hear from you via any platform or channel you feel is accessible for you. Every conversation and interaction allows me to better advocate and represent your needs and those of the roles and responsibilities we fulfill as GP supervisors and practice managers in training sites.

I will end with a quote from another family favourite and a wise sage for sure, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

“It is not our abilities that show what we truly are… it is our choices.”

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to September newsletter

Date reviewed: 30 August 2024

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Chair Reports - 2024

GPSA’s Chair, Dr Srishti Dutta, is actively involved in the stakeholder engagement and broad advocacy work GPSA is engaged in on behalf of the GPSA community.

Her monthly Chair Reports include updates on a range of topics discussed at the many tables at which GPSA now has a seat. Below you can access all of the Chair Reports for 2024 to date, including one penned by Deputy Chair, Dr Frank Maldari, in January:

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Date reviewed: 29 November 2024

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From the Chair...

“There is no absolute truth”… or is there?

The human brain that remains curious for longer learns more, and discovers more. It knows that wicked problems need more than simple solutions or potential magic bullets. It struggles with contradictions and paradoxes.  And it rejects antinomies.
Antinomy: a real or apparent mutual incompatibility of two notions, a contradiction in our own knowledge system, within our reason itself. Not being aware or being unable to acknowledge these antinomies can generate false understanding and contradicting theories.

In the current environment, critical thinking and wisdom are more important than ever.

The fundamental truth of our current primary care system and apprenticeship model is that, regardless of the funding models we do or don’t apply, without supervisors’ contributions it would all disintegrate. Irrespective whether the learner is a medical student, post graduate doctor or GP-in-training, the one constant is the experienced senior GP who offers their expertise to provide individualised guidance, teaching, mentorship and support - this supervisor in turn being supported by a team that helps create and sustain the training site as a quality learning environment.

The supervisor is the one constant across learner levels, standards and outcomes; yet it is the supervisor who has to adapt and change the most to meet the learner’s needs, and the training provider’s requirements, with every individual placement.

The last year or so has seen increased training numbers. While this may have been greater in rural areas and across certain pathways, we know that access to and sustainability of future workforce goes beyond just vocational training to supporting the pipelines leading to general practice and rural generalism. Yet again there is an expectation not only from our profession and peers but also our funders that we, supervisors and training sites, continue to volunteer considerable resources to scaffolding medical students and prevocational trainees. This comes at a time when the sustainability of general practice remains a challenge, as evidenced by the increasing number of practices closing around the country. Although an integral part of every learner’s needs, clinical supervision continues to be unremunerated. Thus a role that comes with clinical accountability and potential reputational risk for any practice or training site, a role that is central to the perpetuation of our profession, remains altruistically-powered (less by choice than need) for the overwhelming majority.

The Board and team of GPSA are all too aware of the challenges and responsibilities our members face. We remain committed to being responsive to your needs and supporting you in all possible ways. This year again our research team has been working tirelessly on the development of systems and structures that best empower supervision teams through evidence-backed innovation.  The education team continues to develop more webinars and resources to help you deliver educational supervision with excellence at its heart. In addition to Scenario – our first mobile app – along with its corresponding learner-facing app, ScenarioEd, this team now brings you Consultation! The Board Game, which had a successful international launch in Wellington at this year’s general practice conference celebrating the RNZCGP’s 50th anniversary.

Like you, we are largely unfunded for what we do: all of which is for you, our members. We are unique in our provision of open access resources, and we remain committed to continuing to share our content for free for the benefit of the broader community, and equally committed to keeping membership free for all Australians involved in GP training. Shoring up the sustainability of GPSA so we can continue to deliver the calibre of support you deserve is naturally one of our key priorities; your purchase of our apps and game will help ensure GPSA can continue to represent and support you into the future.

Our future focus also extends to exploring sponsorships and partnering opportunities with organisations who share our values. This last is part of our goal of ensuring any emerging areas of clinical practice and learner perceived needs can be addressed with confidence by our valued members.

How we work on your behalf in terms of our stakeholder engagement and advocacy efforts takes numerous forms. While some of this advocacy occurs behind closed doors and over many conversations across a variety of settings, our goal is singular: to ensure that your interests do not get buried under other pressing priorities and demands placed on this sector. I want to assure you that your priorities continue to be prosecuted even when some of the issues highlighted earlier in the year have still not been announced as resolved. This is quite frankly because we have either met with relative deafness from sector partners pursuing their own political agendas or encountered unexpected environmental changes requiring additional time to navigate.

The GPSA team and I have invested more than 4 months establishing our member priorities for the NTCER review and the future of GP training via the national annual survey, the NTCER survey, the NTCER working groups, networking events, conferences, the Community platform and the many one-on-one conversations we have had. I remain confident that we have heard from across the full and diverse membership of GPSA, and am grateful that so many of you have been keen to offer solution-focussed and innovative ways to tackle the problems we face. We will continue to raise these insights with other member organisations, training providers and our funders. In addition, we remain involved in other discussions including the various SEM trials occurring across the country, always determined to ensure inclusion of the supervisor voice. We continue to support the SLO Advisory Council too, under the able leadership of its Co-Chairs – Drs Sue Harrison, Tim Chappell and Candice Baker -, facilitating their conversations with both colleges on topics such as dual accreditation of supervisor PD, improved communication, access to regional supervision teams, and proactive measures to support an optimum training experience.

As we start to gear up for the next round of placements in the AGPT space, we encourage training sites to continue to offer as much as is viable by way of both financial and non-financial supports. The NTCER is a minimum set of national terms and conditions, which a great many of you have indicated you already surpass in varying degrees to show the value you place on your future colleagues and potential practice partners. Through the ongoing NTCER review process, we have learnt about the wide range of ways practices offer meaningful support for their trainees over and above the required minimum, including additional exam practice sessions run by volunteer GPs, and personal finance training and assistance delivered by our phenomenal practice managers in their own time. This confirms my belief that the values that drive GP supervision remain enshrined and safe, capable of weathering any pressures or changes to the external environment. I salute your commitment and resilience.

As the Chair of the GPSA Board, I understand that we may all be facing up to the same storm, but we are not all in the same boat. Our role as a membership organisation is to support the entire fleet, including looking after the smallest and the biggest ships through a lens of equity, so each can do their best and sail together. We represent otherwise unassociated individuals and businesses, and do so with humility and respect for all each of you offer to ensure quality health outcomes through high quality training.

This time I leave you to ponder over one of my favourite movie quotes, from of all things the Disney animation ‘Bambi’:

“Life is all about perspective” (not just perception).

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

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Date reviewed: 30 August 2024

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From the Chair...

Change is the only constant... Or is it?

It was almost 15 years ago when, at the orientation day of a vocational training scheme not unlike the AGPT, a speech delivered by the Director – who was himself a GP – doused the enthusiasm of a room full of largely female trainees with two messages of doom:

  • that we would be impacted by medical (specifically GP) unemployment, and
  • that most of the women in that room would have at least one pregnancy during training… and that he expected to be informed about it as soon as it occurred.

I can’t attest to the accuracy for the rest of the registrars who heard those words, but for at least for one person in that room those predictions were entirely incorrect. Hence I find myself here still: a GP unwilling to blithely accept all the negative predictions about our profession and the future GP workforce currently swirling around us.

While I may accept change is the only constant and adaptability a skill that we undervalue, I remain optimistic that GP supervisors and our trainees have plenty to contribute to the delivery of quality primary healthcare for our communities in the years to come. Change doesn’t always come in the forms we expect, nor is it always unwelcome; it is in fact an opportunity for us to make what is good even better.

The past month has seen me in many gatherings, with many opportunities to meet and engage with members, partners and stakeholders. The topics of discussion have ranged from the single employer model to the NTCER review, use of AI, medical education tips and peer support to name a few. There is wide acceptance of the inevitability of changes to come, however there is also a desire to hold on to things that matter to us: the collaborative nature of GP supervisors and medical educators, the ability to pass on business skills and help grow new practices, and most of all having fun while we do the things we each do best. This last was clearly demonstrated at the GPME conference on the Gold Coast, where GPSA’s Drs Simon Morgan and Jess Wrigley launched our newest education tool “Consultation!” – a fun, educational and at times frustrating board game that uncannily mimics a day in practice as the players navigate patient presentations and brain teasing challenges while racing each other to the tea room before all the cupcakes are gone! If you want to know more, please have a look at (link) and other learning resources on our website and in your mobile app store designed around the philosophy Justin Coleman refers to as “edutainment”: making GP training more enjoyable.

At the tail end of June, GPSA brought together your on-the-ground College representatives, the Supervisor Liaison Officers (SLOs), for the annual face-to-face meeting of the SLO Advisory Council. This meeting took place across 2 half-days in Brisbane, and included a really productive session with key members of each College’s leadership team including both RACGP President (and former GPSA Chair) Dr Nicole Higgins and ACRRM President Dr Dan Halliday. Another first, driven by GPSA’s MoU with GPRA, the second day started with a joint meeting of the two advisory councils representing the key participants in vocational training: the RACGP, ACRRM and RVTS SLOs and their registrar counterparts, the RLOs. This was a highly engaged, interactive session that spoke to the passion, commitment and alignment of both the two Advisory Council members as well as the two independent peaks committed to supporting them, and in turn you.

The next month will bring for these peaks further engagement as we enter into negotiations regarding the revision of the NTCER. GPSA will also continue to participate in broader training and supervision conversations such as the facilitation of higher quality supervision for pre-fellowship PGY1 and PGY2 trainees in community general practice, supporting practices and supervisors in the next AGPT placement process, and seeking clarity from the Colleges about timing of Semester 2 out-of-practice education so that practices can take back some control over their ability to plan and minimise the impact on their patients’ access to registrars. We encourage you to contact us and your SLOs with any concerns or issues that you might have to ensure your needs are voiced in our discussions with our sector partners and Commonwealth.

Until next time, I leave you with words that come from another of my favourite motion pictures (that’s “movies” for you younger folk):

“Change isn’t always bad. It’s just different.” – Chani (from “Dune”) 

Hopefully this reminds us that change, while often uncomfortable, really can lead to positive outcomes.

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to July newsletter

Date reviewed: 30 August 2024

Please note that while reasonable care is taken to provide accurate information at the time of creation, we frequently update content and links as needed. If you identify any inconsistencies or broken links, please let us know by email.

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Out and about – May 2024

Living out of a suitcase through May!

May for our CEO started with a pleasant if lengthy drive to the South Australian Riverlands for the National SEM Conference, where she had the opportunity to speak with supervisors and practice owners participating in the SEM developed for the Renmark and Berri communities.

What struck her most was the value of co-design in these place-based solutions. The essential ingredients might be summarised as flexibility, mutual respect, and a willingness to investigate and respond proactively to the needs of all stakeholders – trainees, supervisors, practices, state-run health services and the community members they serve. SEM is definitely not a one-size-fits-all concept, and has limited application based on geographical and demographic context; but for certain rural locations in which GPs juggle their workload across both hospital and practice settings, it offers a means to improve and perpetuate equitable primary health care options for the community.

On her trip home from Berri, Carla was invited to attend a GP Supervisor Networking Dinner in Swan Hill. Hosted by Murray PHN, this fun night at One28 Doors gave an enthusiastic group of supervisors the chance to discuss what they most enjoy about their supervision role, and their concerns about retaining registrars in regional and rural locations.

The next road trip followed shortly after the first, seeing Carla head to another very pretty town that should by rights be teeming with GPs! This year’s Rural Doctors Association of Victoria (RDAV) Conference was held in Mildura, where a lot of the discussions were again around retaining junior doctors to the end of and following their vocational training.

The Hon. Anne Webster, Federal Member for Mallee and Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health – coincidentally the wife of possibly the best known Mildura GP in living history, recently-retired Dr Phillip Webster – spoke passionately about this issue at the conference dinner where she witnessed the presentation of the RDAV Lifetime Membership Award to Dr Sue Harrison OAM… by none other than Sue’s daughter, Emergency Department Clinical Lead at Swan Hill District Health, Dr Emily Harrison (FACRRM).

Closing out the month, Carla travelled to Cairns for the RACGP Practice Owners Conference with GPSA COO Leonie Chamberlain and Chair Dr Srishti Dutta. In addition to all that Srishti covered in the June Chair Report, GPSA held a lively networking night for practice managers; Leonie visited the Wuchopperen Health Service managed by the lovely Susanne Raistrick; the GPSA booth was never empty; and Srishti, Carla and other sector partners were in constant networking mode. What you can’t tell from the conference photos is just how busy the GPSA team was talking with practice owners and supervisors about the NTCER, and hearing about the many innovations our members have developed to maintain and expand their team’s focus on a high quality learning culture. Truly inspirational.

Return to E-Newsletter

Date reviewed: 31 May 2024

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From the Chair...

Change not necessarily the only constant!

April 2024 has been a month of many significant days, extremes of celebration and tragedy, but there is one I would like to highlight in particular.

ANZAC Day is an opportunity to reflect on a great many things: sacrifice, courage, security, commitment, loss, solidarity, trauma… all having a lasting impact equally on loved ones and the community at large as on those who have contributed to our armed forces. GPSA is proud to support our peers who currently serve, those who have served, those who supervise ADF registrars, and those who care for our veterans and their families.

With Autumn in full gear now, May seems to be shaping up as a month of action for all of us in the supervision environment. Some of you will be completing mid-term reports for your registrars, others getting ready for the next round of placements, and hopefully we’re all keeping up with our professional development requirements too.

In my many travels and roles as a GP, I am repeatedly engaged in discussions about GPSA activities. This feedback from a supervisor peer who attended a webinar presented by Dr Simon Morgan and Dr Tim Chappell shows the impact our ongoing educational delivery has on our members:

“Thank you both for a very engaging seminar! I watched it because I am a supervisor but benefitted from it as a GP. Tim, you had me at “dementor” and “chocolate”….! I absolutely love my job and listening to what you shared, Tim, it articulated the “why”. It was just good to hear again about the importance of being a good listener, being in your patient’s corner, not giving up on them…. and smiling! As is the case in many places, there is a high demand for services (where I work) and a long wait time and I have wondered if I should be more “matter of fact” and a more efficient problem solver so as to be able to see more patients. But I think that one would then miss out on those nuggets of history that come forth with time, and also the meaningful doctor-patient relationships that we can have in our line of work.”

And these words from a registrar who had reached out in a time of difficulty shows the benefit of what GSPA’s focus on the “how” of supervision ultimately has on our trainees:

“I am at a new practice now – it is amazing what a difference a supportive supervisor can make. Feeling settled and now actually can start to learn.”

It is when we receive such feedback that I know our impact as supervisors goes well beyond supervision, and GPSA’s impact as the supervision peak truly is vital for the future of general practice.

GP training will continue to change, as will general practice. As part of this community of practice, we will have to evolve and keep up with the world around us, yet we can do so in the knowledge that the GSPA values shaped by the “why” and the “how” of supervision will remain a constant on which you can rely.

The other thing you can depend on is GPSA’s commitment to representing you faithfully in our stakeholder engagement, the future direction we are advocating for on your behalf, and in the priorities you share for the current review of the National Terms and Conditions for the Employment of Registrars (NTCER).

If you haven’t already done so, please take some time out to complete our National Survey for 2024. This is not an idle exercise. This really is your opportunity to influence future policy around a range of things including workforce, remuneration and recognition of supervision. The information we obtain from this survey helps us share the real issues at the coalface with policy makers and funders, emphasising what needs to change and what needs to stay the same. While this is of course the long term benefit, there’s a short-term one too! Completing “ENGAGE 2024 – Building a better future together” counts towards your CPD (RP) as an added bonus. This survey is open to everyone involved in GP training – supervisors, GPs, practice managers, practice nurses, and others who support learners in general practice.

For anyone who has been involved in registrar employment – terms, conditions, or contract oversight -, now is the time to help us maximise the opportunity to update this legally valid employment instrument. The inevitability of change applies in this area of GP training too, with other employment models being explored under the Single Employer Model pilots, but the NTCER remains relevant to the bulk of GPs-in-training, and we need your contribution to ensure its robustness and utility is maintained and possibly broadened to non-traditional contexts (i.e. beyond the employment of AGPT registrars). We’ve come up with a variety of ways for you to tell us what’s important, which key areas you would like addressed to ensure the next version of the NTCER is fit for purpose into the future. Let us know your views via the NTCER survey and/or by joining one of our member workshops or via email.

So until next month…

May the force be with you!

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

May 2024

Date reviewed: 30 August 2024

Please note that while reasonable care is taken to provide accurate information at the time of creation, we frequently update content and links as needed. If you identify any inconsistencies or broken links, please let us know by email.

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“We really are building the future of general practice”
Dr Candice Baker, GP Supervisor and GPSA Board Director

Candice obtained fellowship as an Australian General Practitioner in 2015, then as a Canadian Family Physician in 2019. She has worked at a training practice in regional Victoria for 10 years.

This is where the seeds of passion for medical education were sown through supervision of medical students and registrars before becoming an accredited supervisor early in 2022.

How have you arrived at your GPSA role?
“I have a desire to contribute within general practice supervision, to try to ignite some change, and help support the profession.

“That desire has been born out of the environment that I trained in and therefore the same sort of environment that I want to create and promote in terms of general practice supervision. It stems back to when I did my training and that amazing environment, surrounded by my supervisors, and a culture of teaching and learning: where everyone was a teacher and a learner at the same time. I identified with these colleagues, and they were pivotal in shaping my desire to follow their lead.

“I identified with these colleagues, and they were pivotal in shaping my desire to follow their lead”

“With regards to my role on the GPSA Board specifically, I think that’s probably a combination of my love of teaching with a hint of opportunity and a whole lot of luck – falling into things at the right time and the right place. Dr Madhu Tamilarasan, a GP Supervisor and former GPSA Director and friend, motivated me to engage actively with GPSA. Despite my hesitation about my suitability for the Board, Madhu encouraged me to throw my hat in the ring. She was a great inspiration to me.”

How have your various roles prepared you for your work with GPSA?
“The training environment I experienced enabled me to get involved in education in various forms. As a 2nd year registrar, I was involved in supervising medical students and I was also a Registrar Medical educator (RME) with my Victorian RTO.

“I also work for Monash University School of Rural Health and assist in the running of their general practice program for their Year 4 students. These roles were quite complementary to general practice supervision and allowed me to understand the breadth of supervision, and in fact, what it means to be a supervisor.

“And I’m currently a Supervisor Liaison Officer (SLO) which is a complementary role to everything in terms of advocating and works nicely with my GPSA Board role.
“It all seems to be a very natural progression for me, and I have just gone where the path has taken me.”

Do you see opportunities for GPSA’s education products internationally?
“I think there are opportunities for GPSA to expand to specific international markets where the core knowledge is the same throughout. For example, in looking at Canada where I spent some time during Covid, there were no major differences to Australia in terms of primary health care.

“In terms of SCENARIO, GPSA’s phone application, I think it’s really helpful and could be applied in other health care settings. Particularly for new supervisors, who maybe just haven’t quite figured out exactly how they want to structure their teaching sessions, or whether they’re stuck for what to cover at a particular stage in their learner’s journey.

“This application offers a form of convenience and a certain spontaneity that can be helpful. SCENARIO can flush out streams of deficiencies or things that maybe the learner needs to focus a bit more on. For example, was their respiratory knowledge as good as their cardiology knowledge; are they not as good at communication versus legal concepts.

“I think there is huge potential for growth within different areas of specialization, whether that’s obstetrics or emergency. I can see it being used much more widely and I’ve certainly found it useful and a fun thing to add to our teaching sessions with my registrars.”

What challenges are presently of greatest concern in the realm of supervision for our members that you’re aware of?
“I have three issues when I speak to supervisors that are top of mind:

  1. The sustainability of supervision – in the sense of the current apprenticeship model in general practice and what that looks like into the future.
  2. Appreciation of supervision is a big concern and, in particular, how supervisors are viewed In the wider scheme of things. With the transition of GP training back to the colleges, I think that has led to some under appreciation and undervaluing of the supervisors on the ground. There has been lots of new work and new assessments being introduced with limited consultation on the ground about how that would work in practice.
  3. Thirdly, remuneration is always a hot topic. I think we’re all aware that GP supervisors give way more than what most people would at the hourly rate they get paid. There seems to be this constant idea that supervisors can just do more, and that’s okay. Can we create a sustainable, high quality general practitioner at the end of training, if we don’t nourish the people that are nourishing them? We wouldn’t expect to have a bountiful garden full of vegetables if we didn’t actually take care of the soil. I think supervisors are the soil that helps grow our future workforce.”
  “I think supervisors are the soil that helps grow our future workforce.”
 

What solutions do you see that we offer to our members? What are we doing to help?
“GPSA is striving to lead from the front. I think our presence is more visible and the organisation is more prominent compared to perhaps 3-5 years ago.

“I believe we’re doing a great job advocating for those at the coalface and that’s partly because the Board of Directors are supervisors – we are the people we represent. We’ve got a firsthand idea of what it’s like to be on the ground and doing supervision work. That puts us in an excellent position to be able to advocate for change and be heard. We are very good at listening to our members and making sure that we sort of get a seat at every table to talk about issues that are important to general practice supervision.

“I firmly believe you can’t effect change if you’re not actually involved in the conversation. From that perspective, it’s been a successful couple of years in terms of having a seat at each table and being able to do that.”

Message to fellow supervisors
“My main message to fellow supervisors is that we value you. A while ago I was told by a colleague at Monash, “we really value what you do”. I suddenly thought, no one’s ever really said that to me. As supervisors, we really don’t get told that we are valued for what we do. Now I make a concerted effort when I catch up with my local supervisors to tell them that we really value having them as part of the team. And if there’s anything that we can do to make life a bit easier for them, then tell us. Acknowledging their indispensable role in general practice training is crucial. Without supervision and the dedicated work of supervisors on the ground, training simply wouldn’t be possible. We really are building the future of general practice and GPs in Australia.

“We really are building the future of general practice and GPs in Australia.”

“Additionally, I really feel strongly about finding a way to further engage practices that are committed to education and training at a high level of quality. It’s important we come up with a set of standards for supervision that allow us to ensure that we are putting supervisors and registrars into supported practices, and that we know that trainees are going to get a good training experience. The GPCLE tool has a huge role to play in this work. It sets the standard of supervision and whether we’re meeting that bar as training organizations or training practices. This is an important focus over the next couple of years.”

Date reviewed: 24 April 2024

Please note that while reasonable care is taken to provide accurate information at the time of creation, we frequently update content and links as needed. If you identify any inconsistencies or broken links, please let us know by email.

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