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From the Chair...

A note of gratitude

As I write to all our members, I reflect on what has been for many a disruptive and challenging month since our last newsletter – a month replete with events that seemed insurmountable and uncontrollable. Whether tropical weather, dry storms, fire, flooding or drought, even if you were affected by the destructive forces of nature you will have continued to be a pillar of support in the community you serve – persevering in your role as GP, RG, supervisor, practice manager and/ or practice principal. My thoughts are with all who had to deal with these challenges, and I remain grateful to you for both enduring the challenges and having supported the peers and trainees under your guidance and care.

It is at times like these that being part of a supportive community and practice team, which we may at times take for granted, becomes most apparent. I would specifically like to recognise the vital role practice managers play in steering the ship through times of uncertainty and outward chaos. As a clinician and supervisor, witnessing the singular focus our practice manager had on ensuring the best conceivable way forward for every member of our team and patients in the preparation for, during and in the aftermath of Cyclone Alfred was oddly comforting: reminding me of the stoic resolve with which I saw that practice manager deal with the unexpected and pivot as needed throughout the pandemic.

Moving onto things more routine, I thought I would bring to your attention one of the supervision resources I have recently benefitted from out of the varied repository created and curated by the GPSA education team over the last 2 decades. By now I suspect that most supervisors will be using workplace-based assessments as part of the educational supervision for your trainees, and one of these is random case analysis – a powerful tool that allows you to delve into and provide feedback on aspects of the trainee’s progress such as knowledge, clinical reasoning and other domains. GPSA – General Practice Supervision Australia | How to… Random Case Analysis is a resource I would highly recommend, both as a refresher for experienced supervisors but in particular for any new supervisors who might be embarking on this supervision adventure as it allows you to understand the principles as well as the “how to” of effectively engaging in this activity.

This month I would also like to thank the many GPs and practices who – whether as a positive choice or due to lack of availability either of GPiTs or of the option to be accredited for vocational training by their College – have chosen to invest their time, energy and resources in welcoming a medical student into their practice. There is good evidence that your actions are pivotal in both inculcating and maintaining the interest that these students have for general practice as their future career choice. With steadily growing uptake of this option and Commonwealth attention on increased GP placements for medical students and prevocational doctors from next year, GPSA has developed dedicated content for you: GPSA – General Practice Supervision Australia | Brief guide to Supervision of Medical Students. If you have further questions or queries, including around the remuneration for this aspect of supervision, please do not hesitate to contact us; activating your free account on the GPSA Community and engaging with your peers also gives you access to answers for questions you haven’t even come up with yet!

Last but not least, this month we are wrapping up your opportunity to help us direct our advocacy, education and support foci by participating in our national supervision survey, GPSA – General Practice Supervision Australia | ENGAGE 2025 – Stronger together: your voice, our mission – GPSA Annual Survey. Last year we doubled our response rate and were able to demonstrate the continued interest from our members in this aspect of their professional identity and their strong commitment to supervision – even in the face of extreme challenges. I would strongly encourage all of you to use this survey as your voice, one that allows us to continue to advocate for you, including things that you think need improvement or change across your role and the sector. Those of you who may already have been involved with another exciting translational research project, one that has been progressed over a number of years, will be pleased to know further offerings for “Women in Supervision” (including a webinar) are on the way. If you are interested in the future direction of this or any of our other research projects, please join us in the upcoming webinar or contact our Director of Research and Policy A/Prof Samia Toukhsati.

Here’s looking forward to ongoing engagement, advocacy and growing not just the future GPs, but also the future supervisor workforce in collaboration with all of you.

In conclusion, as I started with gratitude to all of you, I share a quote from another one of my favourite movies and humbling characters that you may well be familiar with, Forrest Gump:

“My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to April newsletter

Date reviewed: 27 March 2025

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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From the Chair...

When praying for rain in times of change…

Since taking up the mantle as GPSA Chair, it has often felt like I’ve been focused on words of encouragement and inspiration rather than spruiking achievements as others might do. To address this as much for myself as you, I thought a quick trip down memory lane (just across my term as Chair so far) might be in order!

GPSA’s advocacy efforts include a vast composite of the things you see and a whole lot of conversations with sector stakeholders behind the scenes. All of this starts with the pain-points and suggestions you communicate with us through direct emails, discussions at conferences, on the GPSA Community platform, and via participation in research including the annual supervision survey “ENGAGE” (which you will be asked to contribute to throughout March).

The most commonly-asked questions I get are:

  • Why are no new practices being accredited for training in MMM1 areas?
  • I am a part time GP, and enthusiastic about supervising, how can I get involved in supervision of registrars?
  • What can we do to ensure we can contribute to medical student supervision, when we have limited room in our urban practice?

I may not always have the perfect answers for each person, but the impact of and actions that come from your questions don’t end there. Listening to you, hearing from you, allows us to view things from different perspectives – ensuring the diversity of our members, and your needs and proposed solutions, are understood and recognised in our advocacy as well as our team’s focus for education, research and member support.

The last 15 months in GP training has proven the Heraclitus saying about nothing being permanent except change. Across the AGPT landscape, in this brief period (following closely on the heels of the transition from RTO-led training and all the changes that entailed) there has been the expansion of Single Employment Model pilots, the negotiation of a new NTCER, substantial progress toward recognition of Rural Generalist Medicine (RGM) as a specialist field within general practice, increased opportunities for GPs with special skills, and a steady but significant increase in GP training numbers. Shifting to the pipeline for GP training, we have seen an increase in the time medical students now spend within community general practice, and preparation for more prevocational training to occur in community general practice as well.

GPSA has been involved in all of these changes at a variety of levels. This has only been possible because of our very targeted advocacy effort to establish one previously-overlooked fact for relevant stakeholders and policymakers: none of this reform across our sector is possible without the continued engagement of resolute, committed, and experienced GP supervisors, training teams and training sites. Only with our members’ dedication to the delivery of a quality placement experience can the desired workforce outcomes – continued attraction and retention of the GPs needed for the future of the profession and the health of our communities – be achieved.

This is the backdrop against which I have viewed the additional funding promises by both major parties leading into the federal election, including the additional support for registrars, prevocational doctors, and indexation of supervision payments as an endorsement of our members’ ongoing commitment and generosity. It should be noted that this last supervisor-specific point has not made its way into print but was communicated to us directly in a phone call from the Health Minister’s Office just hours before Prime Minister Albanese’s announcement on Sunday 23rd February.

The possibility that the promised access to paid parental and study leave – a promise echoed in essence, albeit without any implementation detail at this stage, by the Coalition – might come without any administrative or fiscal burdens on training sites is in itself very promising. All we need to do now is secure an increase in medical student and prevocational supervisor and practice subsidies or incentives in line with the announced priorities around increased placements of these learners in general practice settings. This is a point of advocacy we will continue to pursue until we achieve the desired results.

Many of us already support medical students and/or prevocational doctors – but too few of us recognise this as “supervision”. Please know that regardless of the label assigned to you by the university or other entity, whether “teacher” or “mentor” or some alternative, you are a supervisor. And you deserve to be recognised and rewarded as such when your effort in providing a great experience for our learners and trainees is to not only play a major role in building the pipeline for vocational training but encouraging these GPs of tomorrow to perpetuate general practice by stepping into your shoes as our future supervisors… So you can bet we are also promoting the importance of making the GP supervisor role a career destination in its own right in our advocacy efforts!

As with any changes such as those proposed by the Labour government, the impact will be different for each of us. The Devil will be in the detail as they say. Yet we really must pause to reflect on this pre-election focus on the primary healthcare sector and see this as progress for our profession or at the very least an acknowledgement of our efforts in keeping Australians healthy, even if only notionally and indeed incrementally.

Looking ahead, more changes are inevitable. Please continue to support each other throughout these times of trials and triumphs.

The quote I leave you to ponder this month comes from the movie The Equalizer (which feels strangely fitting at present), spoken by one of Denzel Washington’s iconic characters:

“When you pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too.”

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to March newsletter

Date reviewed: 27 February 2025

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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From the Chair...

To new beginnings and familiar milestones

It’s the dawn of another year of teaching, mentoring, scaffolding and inspiring; another year of turning our daily challenges into valuable learning opportunities for GPs-in-training, medical students and internationally-qualified doctors.

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.”

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to February newsletter

Date reviewed: 15 April 2025

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From the Chair...

Holding things lightly and with Joy

It’s hard to believe that 2025 is already upon us!

I hope, like me, you are ready to say adieu to a challenging and productive, if at times chaotic and exhausting, year in 2024. As we usher in the next twelve months of opportunity and excellence in this profession we work diligently to perpetuate, I would firstly like to thank our members – GP supervisors and practice managers scaffolding the learning of the medical students, prevocational doctors and vocational trainees who will be looking after us long into the future – for their continuing support of all that GPSA is and does.

My sincere hope for this new year is that GPSA continues to build on established relationships and collaborations to enhance our reach in delivering quality and excellence in both supervision and training site support. As we crank back into gear after the New Year break, we look forward to continuing our ongoing efforts to advocate for sector-wide improvements alongside our sister organisation, GPRA, whose new President, Dr Chris Dickie, takes the baton from Dr Karyn Matterson as the clock strikes midnight on the 1st of January. We thank Karyn for her contribution in this role over the last two years.

Recognising that our research and advocacy activities remain on point, I would like to remind you to participate in any and all of our data gathering projects. The 2025 ENGAGE National Supervision Survey is like a megaphone for you to share your views and guide our focus to encompass the things that matter to YOU: please don’t rely on others to share what you are experiencing or observing. The more participants we have in our research studies, the more effectively we can shape a future for general practice supervision that meets your needs. We are currently progressing the mentorship of women supervisors in response to member input, which you or your colleagues may consider joining, and will continue to share new opportunities with you as we continue to innovate in this space.

The education team will continue to review existing resources and add new ones to streamline the delivery of supervision; if you have any areas or topics that you want tackled, please let us know. I am looking forward to supporting my co-supervisor in practice, who has only recently taken this on formally, and sharing both the GPSA resources that I have previously enjoyed and the new ones we launch this year.

My personal goal for 2025 is to highlight supervision and ensure that those of you who supervise in any capacity, formal or otherwise, own it with pride and cautious optimism. Whether you supervise in a community practice or in the hospital setting, and whether you supervise any trainee from medical students to GPs who are developing a special skill or interest… Yes, we are all generous and giving, for it is in the nature of the Guru to be all that and more.

So as the start of a new term approaches, let me challenge you this year with two words this time. Two words that may seem similar yet have a significant nuanced difference too: knowledge and wisdom, “Akal and Gyaan”. While they may appear similar, the true power lies not just in acquiring of knowledge and testing it, but in the experience of applying it and learning to translate it into results, so it transforms into wisdom. The challenge lies in ensuring both our knowledge and wisdom is passed onto those whom we supervise and those who follow us.

So as you get ready with the practical aspects – contracts, setting up a new doctor in your electronic systems, welcome pack and orientation, adjusting your own schedules to fit in as many workplace based assessments as this year demands –, I hope you take a moment to acknowledge the timeless impact of the tasks you are taking on, and let yourself appreciate the moments of joy these may have brought you. It is my prediction that they will bring you many such moments in the coming year too.

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to January newsletter

Date reviewed: 15 April 2025

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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: 15 April 2025

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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: 11 April 2025

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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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: 11 April 2025

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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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: 11 April 2025

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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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

Return to August newsletter

Date reviewed: 11 April 2025

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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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: 11 April 2025

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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