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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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Chair Reports

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

Monthly Chair Reports include updates on a range of topics discussed at the many tables at which GPSA now has a seat.

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Date reviewed: 18 July 2026

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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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: 23 June 2025

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From the Chair...

Our only limit is our imagination...

We are almost at the halfway mark in this Year of the Dragon – a zodiac sign represented by the infinity symbol… signifying endless possibilities, and the energy we send out into the universe coming back to us.

May ended with quite an exciting few days in which I, along with GPSA’s CEO Carla Taylor and COO Leonie Chamberlain, had the occasion to capture some of the really great energy sent out by delegates and exhibitors at the RACGP Practice Owners Conference in Cairns.

Amongst those sharing the good vibes were former GPSA Chairs, Nicole Higgins, Bruce Willett, Trish Baker, and last year’s Deputy Chair Madhu Tamilarasan. We are truly fortunate that this membership organisation of ours has evolved through the efforts of such a dedicated collection of GPs, and doubly blessed to have a current Board whose broad range of skillsets and passion keeps GPSA committed to building on the values and mission of those who preceded us.

Attending industry conferences is a great way to network with like-minded people and keep abreast of new innovations, research outcomes and any changes in our professional landscape. For GPSA, conferences are a fabulous way to connect with our members, to listen and learn from their stories, to offer our support and share our resources such as the newly drafted “Guide for Practice Managers New to Vocational GP Training” into which we’re asking members to provide input* in a model of co-design. For you, by you… does this remind you of the dragon’s infinity symbol?!

The real reward the GPSA team gets from participating in these conferences comes in the form of members sharing their appreciation for and ongoing use of our services and best practice educational tools like our webinars and teaching plans – these apparently being closely followed by our convenient SCENARIO app!

The goal I had set myself for the Cairns conference was to meet at least one supervisor younger than me – and you’ll be pleased to learn I actually found more than one! The fact the first young supervisor I spoke to was participating in a Single Employer Model (SEM) pilot was even more of a boon. While these pilots were a hot topic at the Practice Owners Conference, “payroll tax” was the phrase on everyone’s lips! Rural and urban GPs, especially those who own their practice share one core concern though: how will they be able to sustain the serve they provide their community into the future.

The question I have fielded most in the last 8 months comes from potential supervisors wanting to know when they can be accredited to take on AGPT registrars. My answer is guided by College accreditation policies that are in turn responsive to the environment in which we find ourselves today, namely with some 1,000+ training-accredited practices in surplus of demand. Until AGPT registrar numbers balance out this situation, I ask all those who are keen to be involved in training to please consider taking on medical students. The latest MDANZ report suggests a further drop in medical students choosing general practice – admittedly explained by the uptick in the rural generalist interest, but still suggesting the; let us show them what general practice has to offer by giving them a great experience in their placement.

While we are progressing the NTCER review with the goal of completing a full re-write in time for the 2025.1 placement process, there are still plenty of opportunities for everyone involved in the supervision of registrars – on each and every pathway – to contribute via the NTCER survey and stage-2 workshops**. Our aim is to ensure the NTCER is enhanced to strengthen the relationship between the practice, supervisor and registrar by taking out the confusion and frustration in sites hosting trainees across multiple pathways and under different conditions such as ADF registrars training in the practice under a secondment arrangement (similar to what’s emerging with SEM pilots). Your input into this process is essential to achieving a practical and effective tool that can help streamline in-practice training and continue to be future-focussed.

June promises to include lots of opportunities for us to network and explore issues of importance for our members, kicking off with the GPME conference at which Drs Simon Morgan and Jess Wrigley will be launching GPSA’s fun new supervision tool, the Consultation game – a physical board game we know you will want to get your hands on… and maybe let your trainees play too! Simon is giving you a sneak peak of this brand new innovation in his June Education Update (see the image under the Webinars heading in the June newsletter!). Then I will be representing GPSA at the WildHealth Burning GP conference mid-month; and the following week GPSA will be in Brisbane for the annual face to face meeting of the SLO Advisory Council and a member networking night on Friday 21st June. If you can join us, please register now – these events are a lot of fun!

Until next month, I leave you with this quote from a family favourite, How To Train Your Dragon: “The sky is not the limit, our imaginations are.“

Dr Srishti Dutta, Chair

*Please email PMlead@gpsa.org.au with your suggestions / comments regarding the draft “Guide for Practice Managers New to Vocational GP Training”

**Please email Carla to register your interest in participating in the June  NTCER workshops. 

Return to June newsletter

Date reviewed: 15 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 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: 15 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...

Celebrating & Reflecting

March was certainly a month for celebrations and reflection – Harmony Day, International Women’s Day, Holi, St Patricks Day, Ramadan, World Compliment Day, International Day of Happiness, Lent and Easter….

Following the first meeting of the General Practice Training Advisory Committee (GPTAC) in Canberra at the tail end of the month, I can now share yet another reason for GPSA members to reflect and celebrate: the release of the AGPT Program National Report on the 2023 National Registrar Survey | Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.
For me, the key messages in this report reiterate the vital role the people at the coalface of GP training played in the successful transition to college-led training – and continue to play as the lifeblood of high quality primary care for the Australian community.

The satisfaction of registrars with our members has remained consistently high from 2017 to 2023. Indeed, the analysis by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) of over 1000 open-ended responses in the 2023 survey shows that more than 92% of registrars attributed the best aspects of their training experience to:

  • their current workplace or practice;
  • supervisor and mentor support; and
  • the diversity of patient presentations.

This feedback reinforces the value of GPSA’s commitment to facilitating a supportive and well-structured clinical learning environment for tomorrow’s GP workforce – through our ever-expanding repository of educational resources, our virtual community of practice, the GPCLE quality improvement tool we are currently refining, our upcoming biennial review of the National Terms & Conditions for the Employment of Registrars (NTCER), and even the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) recently signed between GPSA and our sister peak GPRA.

In all the many tables at which GPSA has a seat now, it is a true pleasure to highlight the role supervisors, practice managers and other members of training practices play in the success that we as a profession can claim today and into the future. My job as GPSA Chair is largely focused on advocating for you in your supervision of medical learners and trainees across the educational spectrum. I continually speak to both GP specialty colleges regarding topics our members flag as priorities, such as dual recognition of supervisor professional development and similar efficiencies to ensure minimisation of red tape and maximisation of well-being. To get this right though, we are reliant on your engagement and input.

To this end, you will soon receive an invitation to participate in the GPSA national survey – newly and aptly branded “ENGAGE”. I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of the information you provide through this data collection opportunity: the more you contribute to GPSA research such as this survey, the greater an investment we can make in your future growth and sustainability.

We will soon be launching into the NTCER review – which again is completely reliant on your input to ensure we represent your needs faithfully in this process. The NTCER remains a tool that provides protections for both training practices and registrars, and this year we are looking to enhance it and expand its application to non-traditional contexts such as vocational training pathways outside the AGPT. No doubt you have ideas about improvements at both a big picture and granular level, and we sincerely want to hear about these! Please submit your expression of interest here if you would like to be involved in workshopping the NTCER for 2025-26 with us.

Looking forward to working with you on the key activities lined up for April. Until then, as Yoda would say, “Pass on what you have learned”!

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to April newsletter

Date reviewed: 15 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...

It sure has been a busy month or so - no doubt if you’re looking after a new trainee, you will be feeling this along with me!

I hope it’s a been a good start to the training year for you, and want to remind you that, whenever guidance might be needed, you are not alone. 

At the vocational training level, your College supports include your local SLO and relevant Regional Team member(s); complementing these, regardless if you are involved in placements for medical students, prevocational doctors or vocational registrars, GPSA offers the Community platform as a supervision intranet of sorts, where you can seek help from your peers and brainstorm solutions for emerging problems. 

We also provide advice via email for all things NTCER, registrar onboarding and supervision support, along with regular educational webinars and over 1,000 best practice resources and digital tools.

Supervisors and practice managers in GP training form a vital community of practice, and February was marked by many of our sector partners releasing pre-budget submissions that paid homage to this community: aligning with GPSA’s priorities of recognition, reward and respect for our members.

We actively seek cross-portfolio recognition and reward for training practices and supervisors and commend all stakeholders who have used the platform of their own pre-budget submissions to argue the need for greater support of all parties at the coalface of GP training. This includes the RACGP’s calls for improved funding of GPT1, when significant trainee support is provided by supervisors, as well as training programs like FSP and PEP – which need to be sufficiently funded to allow consistent quality of training and supervision for all GPs in-training across the country.

I firmly believe that the increasing burdens and complexity of healthcare delivery, coupled with the worldwide shortage of medical workforce, make a collaborative focus on developing high quality “medical generalism” the only true solution for our communities. Strengthening and supporting placement experiences for optimum learning of these generalist skills is essential for a robust, effective future workforce. The breadth of knowledge and skills we command and convey through GP supervision is the bedrock of our health system, such that every training practice is a workshop where the next generation of GPs is crafted with a commitment to quality.

With the power in the hands of our members when it comes to the delivery of high quality placements, for the last 10 months GPSA’s research team has been tackling the gargantuan task of developing a tool to support benchmarking and quality improvement in GP training. Based on the best practice framework known as the General Practice Clinical Learning Environment (GPCLE), this tool now needs your input. As a supervisor of both medical students and GPs in-training, I am keen to contribute to the refinement of this innovative tool, and I encourage every member, everyone – educators, supervisors and practice team members – involved or aspiring to be involved in GP training across all educational levels, to test and provide your feedback on the GPCLE tool to ensure it serves as a fit-for-purpose resource to maximise the power you have in the future-proofing of primary healthcare.

Until next month… may the force be with you!

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to March newsletter

Date reviewed: 15 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...

Prestige, pay, and recognition

I write this Chair report hoping that you have all had a great holiday period and returned to your workplaces reinvigorated and refreshed. It’s February already, a month of this year already gone – a month that has seen us acknowledge some of the positive trends emerging after a full year of College led training.

For me, this year started with a long-awaited trip to see my family, visit my roots, and reflect on my early exposure to community physicians in the small town where I was born. This certainly set the tone for me to meet with the new GPSA Board to strategise as we did mid-January – with new ideas and energised minds – about what promises to be an exciting year ahead.

The most recent statistics show an increased interest in vocational GP training, notably with rural generalist positions fully subscribed. This has not been achieved without a lot of hard work, and GPSA is honoured to advocate for the supervisors who remain an integral part of growing this workforce through the quality of the experience they provide, irrespective of where they may be located. January has also seen the recognition of several GPSA members on the Australia Day Honours list. I invite you to join me in congratulating:

  • Dr Jeff Robinson, OAM;
  • Dr Christine Longman, OAM;
  • Prof Charlotte Hespe, AM; and
  • Dr Suzanne Harrison, OAM: Co-Chair of the SLO Advisory Council

This year we hope to build on the existing work that our members do in the community as both GPs and supervisors: community consultants and leaders. As we move towards formal recognition of the rural generalist sub-specialty, it is worth considering the role of the supervisor in general practice through the RG lens. Supervisors provide the hands-on guidance, teaching, training and management advice that would be provided by Consultants in the hospital context. It is only through our supervision role that a sustainable future GP/RG workforce can be developed; it is our influence over the learning experience that inspires the GPiT to become a GP/RG, and from there, a future supervisor.

In the GPSA pre-budget submission, we seek the value of supervision to be recognised through a more collaborative mindset both within primary care and across potential funding sources. While various solutions are at play to attract medical students and junior doctors to general practice, the ability to capitalise on these initiatives for the long-term benefit of our communities relies on the continued commitment of both existing and future supervision teams. This commitment in turn relies on respect for the critical role our members play, taking the form of an increase in remuneration and prestige, and greater recognition within our wider GP community as well.

In coming months, prevocational exposure to general practice will significantly increase across urban, outer metro and rural regions, with expanded medical student placements soon to follow. While this has the potential to spark the youngest and brightest minds into action as our future colleagues and the problem solvers of the next generation, the success of this opportunity will be commensurate with the level of support and empowerment provided to the training practices and supervisors responsible for cultivating medical students, prevocational doctors and vocational trainees into the autonomous, patient-centred healthcare professionals our communities need. It all starts with recognition.

And this report ends with recognition too – specifically recognising the amazing contribution of one individual known to and responsible for inspiring so many across this sector and beyond. As the first semester of 2024 kicks off, the life and legacy of Prof Dennis Pashen – Founder and Former President of ACRRM; Former President of RDAA; Rural Generalist; Supervisor; passionate supporter and member of GPSA – will be celebrated in a memorial that befits the life work of a premier advocate for community healthcare. May Prof Pashen long be remembered as a driver of change.

Dr Srishti Dutta
Chair

Return to February newsletter

Date reviewed: 15 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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