About Us
Who we are
Advocacy
Research and policy
SLOs
Contact Us

Chair Reports - 2024

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

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

Do you have something you'd like us to advocate for on your behalf?
Contact us

OUR PUBLICATIONS

Date reviewed: 27 September 2024

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

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

Out and about – May 2024

Living out of a suitcase through May!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Return to E-Newsletter

Date reviewed: 31 May 2024

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.

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Date reviewed: 24 April 2024

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

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

Why get involved with GPSA? “Having lots of skin in the game,” says this high-flying GP

Dr Kate Manderson is a name associated broadly with Australian general practice and GP supervision yes, but also with aerospace medicine, corporate and clinical governance, advocacy and – above all else – family and community.

On the eve of the transition of GP training to the GP specialty Colleges, this experienced GP and practice principal decided it was time to contribute her vast skills and experience to ensuring quality and passion remained at the heart of clinical supervision for future GPs in-training.

So it was that this ADF-trained health professional, businesswoman, Principal Medical Officer of CASA, Senior Aviation Medical Officer of the  Royal Australian Navy, Graduate of the AICD, Medical Educator and past President and Chair of the Australasian Society of Aerospace Medicine (ASAM) came to be elected onto the Board of GPSA in October 2022.

Kate recently talked with our Communications Manager, Pauline Ingham, about her burning desire to get a better deal for Australian GP supervisors.

What do you think has brought you here to this role on the GPSA Board?

“After 25 years as a GP I have been inside the GP system for a long time and gained a lot of valuable experience.

“Like a lot of GPs, I have a lot of ‘skin in the game’, having worked as a GP, a Medical Educator and a Supervisor.

“I understand how it works, how it could be improved, and have seen some challenging times.”

Why GPSA?

“At a time when I couldn’t contribute to GP training at the coalface, I still wanted to contribute meaningfully.

“I saw the opportunity to use my experience and skills in clinical leadership and governance through the role on the GPSA Board… as a way to help our system, our supervisors and our trainees on a broader scale.”

She notes that she was encouraged and supported by colleagues who said, “Kate you can do this!” – and she decided the time was right.

“My experience in governance, company directorships and leadership came into play. Having an understanding of the importance of operating a viable and strong business, combined with my supervision experiences, enabled me to put myself forward and make a contribution to GPSA."

How have your various roles prepared you for your work with GPSA?

“My first role as a GP registrar prepared me by going through the system. I was privileged to train in Tasmania and on the whole had fabulous education, mentoring and training, working with pioneers and leaders who are still involved today. I learned from people who showed me how great it could be.

“My placement experience varied after that – some practices gave little support; however, it was still the early days of training, and often I was on my own. Some practices straddled the line between good and bad: offering great mentoring and supervision, but less structured education.

“So I had the opportunity to experience lots of different perspectives as a trainee as to what supervision looked like, could look like, and what it  actually should look like.”

How did that view of supervision you had as a trainee change when you started supervising?

“When I moved into the role as a Supervisor and had the opportunity to be on the other side of the table, I instantly realised how hard it can be to be a supervisor!

“I was so determined that there really is no excuse for being a poor supervisor, but the actual experience of doing the job for more than a decade, and having more than 50 trainees over the years, has led me to realise it’s not that simple at all.

“Supervisors deal with registrars of varying needs, and this requires a flexible system that can be very difficult to achieve.”

As a practice owner, what do you see as the challenges facing educating and training the next generation of GPs?

“I see two big challenges or barriers – adequate funding and adequate recognition.

“You want to be altruistic and you want to help somebody – vulnerable people and vulnerable communities – and you want to spend lots of time with patients. And that is beautiful, but you can’t do that if the practice closes because you can’t pay the wages.

“Let’s start with money, and we must talk about that. If your business goes bankrupt you can’t help anyone. It's a fundamental part of what I teach trainees, they have to understand the business of general practice."

So let’s talk about the money!

“It can seem unpleasant to raise, but thinking that money isn’t important is part of the reason we have ended up in this current situation.

“It is important – and there are some key barriers we need to address.

“To start with, the funding model of general practice is fit-for-purpose for 1975, but it is not fit-for-purpose for 2025, 2035, 2045… It hasn’t been fit-for-purpose for a very long time because everything has changed around us, just not this funding model. That is the biggest barrier.

“We are not funded as supervisors, and until that changes we will not have consistency in the quality of training placements… Which means appropriate funding is needed urgently for supervisors and training practices as well as the trainee.

“There is a vast difference between the funding for hospital-based supervisors with payment built into their contracts, and how GP supervisors do it: GP supervisors take a pay cut to teach!”

Any other barriers you’d like knocked down?

“The culture of general practice.

“The idea of #justagp – ‘Are you a specialist or just a GP?’ – is problematic.

“We need something much more powerful in recognition of the specialty of general practice.”

“I believe we must bring back the PGPPP so that everybody gets a turn in general practice – so they understand what it’s about.

“I also strongly believe that we need a name change, because everyone uses ‘GP’ whether they should or shouldn’t.”

“We need to identify our unique skill set, it’s got to be marketed, again back to the finances... We pay equivalently, we recognise the specialty equivalently, and everyone understands what the specialty does."

What challenges are presently of greatest concern in the realm of supervision for our members?

“My sense is that the biggest concern is ‘who’s going to take over when I am done?’

“We have members who are passionate, dedicated and committed in that role. And they are altruistic, self sacrificing, they are doing it without any money, without any recognition, because they want to and they think it’s important.

“Part of it is they are there for the future of the profession, part of it is they are there for the future of their practice. They are thinking, ‘If I am not supervising, we can’t get trainees; if we can’t get trainees, we can’t get succession planning and workforce’ and so on.

“I am living that experience right now. I am not currently supervising registrars in my practice so this equates to empty consulting rooms in my practice.

“People might say if we can’t get registrars then why not get Fellows. That is proving almost impossible in the current climate.” 

We need more women in supervision. How would you encourage women to pursue roles as supervisors? 

“Firstly, GPSA’s current Women in Supervision research is important because if it doesn’t get measured it doesn’t get fixed.

“Data is key and can be used strategically. Commonwealth Departments respond well to data, and politicians respond to real life stories. So you have to tackle any issues with submissions and data.

“With regards encouraging more women into supervision, I’ve already said that supervision is altruistic – you give of your time and your money. Women already have less money and less time, and we are asking them to have even less money and even less time. We have to fix that!

“Another factor is that historically women carry the greater burden of child care. If we have more, better, financially accessible child care for women in primary care, women would do more in primary care.

“If GPSA found a way to subsidise women volunteering to supervise with a cleaner? We’d be inundated! Essentially, childcare and financial recognition are the two things I think will get more women into supervision.”

“If we can adequately remunerate or financially recognise supervision overall, then this will no longer be yet another cut to women who are already being cut by the financial disparity we continue to endure. This would benefit everyone - not just women of course, but it would proportionately benefit women even more.”

What would you like to say to Australia’s supervisors?

“My message to Australian supervisors is to hang in there!

“You are special, you are doing amazing things. GPSA understands this and we’ve got your back. We’re going to do everything we can to make it better for you, so please hang in there while we do that.

“I’d also like to send a message to our trainees, our early Fellows and our new supervisors, and that is to please show up, please don’t expect everyone else to do it. It is a champion team, so show up, be brave, put yourselves out there.

“I urge you to support the industry leaders who are saying GPs have to charge privately and we have to charge our worth to make it so that we can afford to supervise in practices. Be brave, be there, show up and take it on!

“I am taken back to my time in the Navy when the mantra in an emergency or attack was to never leave the ship – the three step approach was ‘Fight, Move, Float’ and ‘we do not abandon ship!’

“So I say to my colleagues: we value you, we need you, don’t abandon the ship!”

Date reviewed: 28 March 2024

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

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

GPSA Chair Report – December 2023

Celebrating the year that was, and excited about what lies ahead!

As I write this Chair report, the last one of this year and my first as Chair, I cannot help but reflect on what a phenomenal year 2023 has been for all of us.

General Practice continues to show we are resilient and resolute despite the challenges that have come our way – attempting to return to a new normal post-COVID, the MBA’s new CPD requirements, and the transition to College-led training to name a few.

The year has also brought opportunities to reconnect, reinvigorate and reinvest ourselves in sharing, teaching and learning across the many events where GPSA has been well represented: PONC, RDAQ, GPME, AAPM, RMA, WONCA, the Australian and New Zealand Prevocational Medical Education Forum, and AIDA. I am sure our members and stakeholders maximised these opportunities to meet with our CEO Carla Taylor, COO Leonie Chamberlain, my predecessor Dr Kevin Arlett, Education Manager Dr Simon Morgan, and Director of Research and Policy Dr Samia Toukhsati.

The GPSA board remains committed to supporting all staff members in our small but effective team in order to deliver high quality educational content, trailblazing research, and useful resources. We envisage these activities and resources will ensure ongoing support to our supervisor and practice manager members, and keep us aligned with our ultimate mission to be the voice of a thriving GP training sector that is united, suitably recognised, rewarded, and respected as the cornerstone of this nation’s healthcare system.

This year we have run a total of twenty (20) webinars that were attended and viewed in record numbers by our members, and the GPSA teaching plans and guides continue to be widely downloaded by supervisors – and at times registrars to support their learning. Kudos to our education team Drs Simon Morgan, Jess Wrigley and Matt Burden, the latter two joining GPSA in an official capacity this year.

The research and policy team has more than its fair share of wins too, having just learnt we’ve successfully secured funding for “Strengthening the recruitment, support, and retention of women GP supervisors: a framework and implementation model” from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ (RACGP) Education Research Grant 2024 program. This is a legacy piece that was conceived under the guidance of Dr Nicole Higgins in her time as Chair.

GPSA also launched the “Scenario” mobile app – a clinical reasoning toolbox designed to augment the learning experience for educators, supervisors, medical students, and trainees alike – and will soon be rolling out a student-facing forum app that ties in with this, “ScenarioEd”, for medical students and trainees across the globe to better experience the international community of practice we work in.

We are indeed still the little team that gets a lot of stuff done!

I take on the role of Chair for the GPSA Board with a mixed bag of emotions. On the one hand, we said goodbye to Dr Kevin Arlett our previous chair, Dr Justin Coleman and Dr Madhu Tamilarasan – all stalwarts in their own right in the GP training domain. You will be missed. Yet at the same time I am looking forward to working with an incredibly talented and diverse Board with two new members, Drs Nick Tellis and Shea Wilcox. We are grateful you have chosen to bring your wisdom and enthusiasm to the GPSA board. This a Board that seeks to represent the best aspects of GP training and its members in its diversity. It captures not just diversity of identity, also of skills, thinking, type of trainees, geographical location, and GP experience/roles. We haven’t quite reached perfection, but I am a firm believer of progress over perfection.

Lastly, I will say this: the coming year will bring us many new issues to navigate such as the 2024 review of the NTCER, new rounds of GP registrar placements, Single Employer Model, and a steady increase in the number of medical student placements in community general practice. Ultimately it is the junior doctor and medical student experience that is a testament to how we have succeeded in enabling and ensuring a safe and thriving learning environment. We will continue to work closely first and foremost with GPRA and indeed other peak bodies – RACGP, ACRRM, AIDA, RDAA and AMA – and advocate for sustainability of our supervisor workforce and training practices.

Training practices and supervisors currently function in an imperfect environment and yet have always delivered effective teaching. Supervisors are to GP education what GPs are to the nation’s healthcare; this expert generalism in training / teaching under our apprenticeship model is not easy to measure and too often feels invisible. Future-proofing GP teaching and training includes making supervision in practice viable and sustainable – financially and in terms of cognitive effort. I hope we do not forget that there is a fine line between heroism and martyrdom.

To the members of GPSA, this is an organisation that is inclusive in values and in action. I invite supervisors irrespective of where you are and who you supervise/teach to join the GPSA Community. The Community reflects our commitment to developing communication channels for peer-to-peer networking and mentoring, and we will receive all member contributions with gratitude.

To end (and this is particularly for the Marvel fans amongst us), I will borrow the words of the one called Optimus Prime: GPSA members and potential members, “it is time to come home!”

Return to E-Newsletter

Date reviewed: 30 November 2023

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.

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

GPSA Chair Report – October 2023

Conferences, AGMs, Registrar Placements... It's just that time of the year!

We look forward to welcoming as many members at our AGM as possible, so please attend if you can, and make sure that you keep supporting us just as we support you!

Return to this month's e-news

To change it up, this month's Chair Report has been recorded as a short video for you...

For avid readers, I've also provided the written version - something for everyone!

Hi all, another month and we are preparing for the AGM.  There are 3 Elected Director positions vacant, plus the option for 2 appointed Board Director positions available.  Nominations have closed and we are running this AGM as a virtual meeting, so please make sure you can attend, or if not, please get your proxies in to the Company Secretary (Carla) according to the instructions here.
The allocation of Registrars for 2024 has now occurred in most of the country and there has been a lot of angst from Registrars and Supervisors re the process.  ACRRM allocations have been smooth but the very short timeframes and the “open market” approach from RACGP has been fraught.  On the first day the TMS could not cope with the volume of potential applicants, some practices receiving many applicants and others not enough! Positions have been limited with a lot of practices who have received a much smaller number of Registrar positions  than they felt that they were expecting.  There were other issues as well, which were discussed on our Community Platforms. All these comments are being collated and will be discussed with RACGP at our next meeting.  I get the feeling that a lot of the anger and disappointment could have been avoided with much clearer and more timely communication with RACGP members. 
On the brighter side, our new app “Scenario” has been released now and there has been an overwhelming response to it.  This app will allow the user to generate a clinical scenario in a number of different areas with a suggested prompt or two.  These scenarios are great to use in training sessions and everyone who has seen the app so far has been very quick to heap praise upon it.  Get it now from your Apple or Android app store!
We have of course been attending a number of conferences recently, showing our support for Supervisors and Supervising Practices.  We always seem to have someone at the booth talking about quality GP Supervision and looking at the educational supports that we provide as well as looking at “Scenario” and just asking for advice.  We have been presenting various papers at these conferences and this shows the quality of research that GPSA undertakes – congratulations to Sami and our research team at GPSA. 
Please let us know if you want to be involved in the research that is undertaken by us. We are currently developing an evaluation tool for the GPCLE (General Practice Clinical Learning Environment) that is described on our website here. 

Date reviewed: 26 October 2023

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.

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

GPSA Chair Report – October 2023

Lots of hard work… And it’s beginning to pay off!

As the year races along, it remains a busy time for the GPSA community. With this in mind, I will try to keep my report a bit more succinct this month, however there are a number of important issues I want to draw your attention to:

  1. GPSA members finally recognised for providing the educational continuum from medical student to fellowed GP /RG
  2. Conference Season is upon us
  3. GPSA’s Scenario App to launch for the international healthcare / educational community
  4. The importance of this community of practice for the community at large

I thank you for your support of our recent Media Release outlining our reasons to be enheartened by the long-overdue acknowledgement of our GP supervisor and practice team members in the recently published Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand (MDANZ) Position Paper: Doctors our Communities Need: Building, Sustaining and Supporting the General Practice Workforce in Australia and New Zealand.

Throughout this year we have been actively lobbying the Department and other GP organisations, particularly in the forum of the General Practice Training Advisory Committee (GPTAC), for a concerted effort to unify the many and disparate entities involved in pathways leading to vocational GP training. In the fragmented space we’ve endured for far too long, the placement experiences crucial to attracting more medical students and prevocational doctors to a career in general practice / rural generalism have invariably been under-valued and thus under-supported. Changes arising from the AMC’s new supervision framework also make future supervisor disengagement increasingly likely due to new requirements failing to recognise the experience of AGPT-accredited supervision, resulting in unnecessary and time-consuming duplication of PD activities.

When MDANZ published their Position Paper recommending the need for increased exposure to general practice to improve the attractiveness of our specialty, their focus on more and higher quality GP placements for medical students and prevocational doctors – underpinned by an appropriate level of support and remuneration, and greater consistency across the educational spectrum – effectively signalled the very change Carla and I have been advocating for. DOHAC has been very supportive of our work to facilitate greater interaction between MDANZ, CPMEC and the GP specialty Colleges, recognising the value of turning the spotlight on the GP supervisor as best placed to encourage more interest in our profession. Subsequent discussions with MDANZ indicate a strong willingness to work with GPSA, inviting our members to embed their observations and suggestions in a new curriculum for general practice at the university level. This is really very exciting.

Of course October is ‘Conference Season’ for our sector, and we are excited to be participating in a number of conferences around the country. We hope to catch up with you at any or all of the AAPM, RMA23, WONCA, PMEF and AIDA events. See full details of our conference involvement in the body of the newsletter or on our website here.

We have also been working diligently on the development of our Scenario App, scheduled for release in time for RMA23. This mobile app will produce case scenarios and prompts across a range of topics for supervisors to incorporate into their teaching sessions with registrars and students. It promises to be an indispensable educational tool with international application, noteworthy for its origin right here in Australia. Excitingly, all profits generated by this resource will be directed right back into our support of the GP training sector. Who knows, maybe GPSA will be running its own national networking conference for our members before long?

While GPSA has been directing energy into innovation and greater recognition and reward for our members, we all have a role in fighting for our profession. As supervisors and training practice teams we need to ensure that whatever role we play in supervision is performed at the highest level of quality possible, displaying just why general practice is the best medical specialty and one that all doctors should strive for. The trust and value bestowed upon us by our patients reinforces every day how important we are to the community. Ours is probably one of the most difficult specialties in medicine, but it is also one of the most rewarding – especially when we band together as a community of practice and support one another.

Stay strong and keep on keeping on.

Return to E-Newsletter

Date reviewed: 25 September 2023

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.

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

GPSA Chair Report – September 2023

Never a dull moment…

Is it just me, or has GP / RG training been a hot topic in the medical media through the closing days of this Aussie winter?!

Apart from the IMG rural moratorium, SEM pilots, pay disputes involving hospital doctors in training, the GP crisis hitting hard in the NT, some solid focus on the need to invest in more (and earlier) GP placements for medical students – including this interesting opinion piece from GPSN – and a decent nod to GPSA’s best practice research focus, August 2023 is likely to be remembered for one key topic…

Payroll tax.

It’s a little difficult to perceive the changed interpretation of unchanged state legislation as anything other than general practice being lobbed around as a political football. There are a lot of practices running scared – especially training practices, where payroll tax is already applied to the salaries of GPs in training, putting us in the spotlight as ‘payroll’ calculations will be expected to expand to all the other GPs in our practices including those ‘independent’ practitioners contracting the practice for services, rooms etc.

Some states (Queensland and SA) have offered payroll tax amnesties, and of course there’s been quite a bit of noise about the ACT’s offer of ‘conditional’ amnesty: hingeing on a pledge by practices to bulk bill 65% of their patients. Other jurisdictions have not offered any notion of relief, such as NSW and Victoria, and I’m in two minds about this. I personally am very concerned that the term ‘amnesty’ implies an admission of guilt, much as the concept of ‘exemption’ makes the liability seem beyond challenge. And retrospective application? That has the very real potential of crippling primary healthcare – and in turn our entire health system – across this country.

Benjamin Franklin (that man on the USD $100 note) gave us the saying about death and taxes, and yes, it applies equally now as it did more than 2 centuries ago: one way or another, this seemingly unjust tax will hit us as GPs, and it will change the profession as we now know it. 

I hope and pray that this situation will not deter high quality practices from training the next generation of high quality GPs. This has the potential to even further derail the pipeline of young doctors into this specialty. We already have fewer registrars than training positions and we need to be encouraging entry into general practice, not allowing state governments to sabotage it. 

What is key here is that everyone should really be seeking expert advice as to their next steps in line with their own individual circumstances. And then we should be activating the power of our voice as a community of practice. We know the RACGP and AMA are fronting up to the state governments to tackle this issue, and they have had some real wins along the way. But do you as supervisors and training practice owners / managers feel like your voice is being heard in these discussions?

GPSA members are the last bastions of high quality, independent primary healthcare. We as individuals and businesses are responsible for roughly 85% of the training required for a doctor to achieve fellowship in general practice. We can make or break the medical student / prevocational doctor’s passion for this specialty, which often comes down to how often we denigrate ourselves as “just GPs” and how much of our stress over the sustainability of what we do seeps into our trainee interactions. 

On the flip side, we are substantial in number; but, instead of activating this as a community of practice working together to advocate with one voice, we are either putting our energy into complaining as lots of separate individuals on Facebook / LinkedIn, or burying our heads in the sand… waiting for someone else to do something about it. By rallying together, we can use our undeniable powers of reasoning and deduction to strategise and problem-solve, to plan and find a way forward that doesn’t compromise our values, reputation, or financial stability.

For our part, we continue to work with GPRA, building on the relationship forged through the NTCER review process last year to strengthen the understanding that our memberships represent the two sides of the GP training coin – that we are not just investing our time and energy in short-term workforce but potentially our future colleagues and maybe even business partners. We are shoring up areas of alignment in terms of advocacy, research and education and undertake regular meetings jointly, in particular with state health departments around upcoming Single Employer Model (SEM) pilots, trying to guide and offer assistance as we can. It’s great to report that our offers of help are being well received – and  our views on embedding quality training and ensuring unintended consequences of these individual arrangements don’t do more damage to general practice and the communities that rely on its sustainability are also being heard.

Carla and I also find great value in our regular meetings with both Colleges, where we have the opportunity to advocate strongly for GP supervisors and practice teams and offer our assistance as a sector conduit to keep the changes through this ongoing training transition on track from our members’ point of view. 

We are also meeting with the Commonwealth monthly, which is a terrific platform for this community of practice to have a voice. It is in this forum that we have been able to express that reality that even the goodwill embedded in “My Medicare”, and other Commonwealth strategies being implemented with all the best intentions, are being tainted by the jurisdictional payroll tax ‘attack’. An interesting fact is that if a practice has payroll taxes of significant levels, then these are a tax deduction that reduces what the ATO would otherwise receive from that business. When I suggested that Treasury may be interested in this at one of our recent GPSA / DOHAC meetings, eyebrows were certainly raised!

So you see we have been nurturing a range of relationships across the sector to voice your concerns and solutions. It’s just so important to remember that together we can make a real difference.

Virtually we are bringing our members together through the GPSA Community initiative, and now we are rolling out our face-to-face member networking events starting with Brisbane on Wednesday 20th September. Nothing fancy, just a chance to catch up with your peers and chat with us about the things that matter to you. You can read more about this, and a whole lot of exciting opportunities and updates, in this month’s e-newsletter. And then you can start a conversation with us and with your colleagues via GPSA Community, and help shape the powerful voice this community of practice needs to activate.

Return to E-Newsletter

Date reviewed: 31 August 2023

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.

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

GPSA Chair Report – August 2023

Planning for what lies ahead

As the end of the year approaches at warp speed, we now turn our attention to what lies ahead. GP Supervisors might think of this as a reference to the Unknown Unknowns of Jahari’s Window, but I’m more concerned today about the Known Unknowns of the hectic Conference and AGM season coming up in October / November!

GPSA’s amazing team will be front and centre at several conferences this year, presenting on research, education and GP training initiatives at RMA, WONCA and (fingers crossed) the National Prevocational Medical Education Forum. Just one of the research topics we’ll be spruiking at these events is the “GPCLE” (GP Clinical Learning Environment). Building on previous research, this project – funded through the 2023 RACGP Educational Research Grants and overseen by a Steering Committee that could easily be confused for the United Nations so extensive is the quality and breadth of its membership – involves the development of an essential quality evaluation tool for Australian training practices. Under the leadership of our highly experienced Director of Research & Policy, Dr Samia Toukhsati, the GPCLE project exemplifies two features that make GPSA stand out in this space: 

On top of multiple research / education presentations, by the time we arrive at RMA23 and WONCA, GPSA’s mobile app “SCENARIO Toolbox for Supervisors” will be ready for you to test and review. This is just one of the innovations we have been working on to keep our resources relevant and accessible into the future. Another is the GPSA Community Platform, developed to help you connect and engage with this very special community of practice; to share ideas and drive solutions for others in your region, and for the sector more broadly. Supervisor Liaison Officers are now facilitating jurisdicational networking on this Platform too, making it even easier for you to reach out for help and stay in touch with peers locally and across the country.

As mentioned previously, the Practice Managers on the Community Platform put the rest of us to shame with their easy adoption of this new communication channel back in April… My challenge to you Supervisors and Practice Owners is to get involved: start a conversation, comment, message one another and join groups that resonate with you whether through your role, geographical location and / or special interest(s)! Of course, if you haven’t activated your account on the platform yet, you should probably start there!!

While this challenge is only intended to promote healthy competition, it also serves as a reminder that Practice Managers are eligible for election to the GPSA Board this year. A significant amendment to our Constitution passed by Special Resolution at the 2022 AGM elevated Practice Managers to “Ordinary” members of GPTA Ltd, allowing one of the seven elected Directors to be a Practice Manager (alongside six active GP Supervisors). The reason I am highlighting this now is because, in two very short months, we will be calling for nominations for Directors.

Four positions will be voted on at this year’s AGM, which will be held via Zoom from 7.30pm AEDT on Monday 13th November, 2023.

Are you ready to help us take GPSA into the future? 

Return to E-Newsletter

Date reviewed: 28 July 2023

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.

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.

GPSA Chair Report – July 2023

Contact us for more info:

At the halfway mark… And what a half-year it’s been!

For this month’s Chair Report, I thought we might share a summary of the work GPSA has been focusing on for our members over the first 6 months of the year:

  • expanding services for GPSA members:
    • free online community platform to connect members and promote GP training community of practice
    • GPSA now an approved CPD provider for RACGP (ACRRM provider status pending)
    • developing wide range of “cheat sheet” resources
    • developing online modules to complement growing repository of guides and teaching plans
    • podcast in development – hosted by Drs Simon Morgan and Justin Coleman
    • developing an internationally-accessible mobile app “Scenario” to provide readily-accessible, affordable alternative to physical flashcard resources
    • developing a free web-based version of the Clinical Reasoning Game (physical game value $120 per unit)
    • working with HiCaps and other private sector stakeholders to develop strategies for practices to manage upcoming payroll tax changes
    • GPSA now an approved provider of practice manager CPD for AAPM
  • developing an evaluation tool for quality improvement and College use in training practice accreditation – based on the 2021-22 General Practice Clinical Learning Environment (GPCLE) research and resources under funding from the RACGP ERG
  • developing a supervision support program specific to the Northern Territory under grant funding provided by NTGPE
  • working with AMA Queensland and the RACGP to advocate on behalf of training practices in the payroll tax ruling (application of which was subsequently deferred to 2025)
  • participating in (and now coordinating) monthly Supervisor PD meetings with RACGP and ACRRM
  • meeting fortnightly with RACGP to progress operational and strategic matters
  • meeting fortnightly with ACRRM to progress operational and strategic matters
  • meeting fortnightly with GPRA to develop collaborative opportunities and identify emerging issues
  • meeting monthly with DOHAC to advocate on behalf of supervisors and training practices
  • participating in quarterly GPTAC sector stakeholder meetings
  • participating in quarterly meetings of the National Council of Primary Care Doctors
  • participating on the National Advisory Committee of the Rural Health Commissioner
  • participating on Steering Groups for state / territory Workforce Planning and Prioritisation (WPP) organisations
  • successfully completing the 2022 revision of the NTCER with GPRA and updating the Agreement for 2023.2
  • driving meetings with each state / territory to discuss the 17 new juridictional Single Employer Model (SEM) pilots currently under consideration, ensuring priority is given to:
    • facilitating and rewarding high quality training placements in private practice
    • avoidance of unintended consequences such as:
      • exacerbating the urban / rural divide
      • further diminishing trainee motivation to learn the business of general practice
      • trainee enticement to remain in public health employment post-pilot / post-fellowship
      • postponing rather than solving the issue of lost entitlements upon leaving hospital employment for independent contracting once fellowed
  • working with Regional Training Hubs and Rural Workforce Agencies to expand supervisor and training practice supports for medical students and pre vocational learners / IMGs
  • exploring opportunities to develop national standards for training practices involved in the supervision of medical students and pre vocational learners / IMGs
  • exploring alternative solutions to state-based SEMs to tackle attraction of more doctors to general practice
  • working with ACRRM to develop rural generalist (RG)-specific resources
  • participating on RG Reference Groups in WA, working with RDN NSW, VRGP and RGPWA to support supervisors of pre vocational learners on RG pathways
  • developing tools from the 2022 research study, “Conflict in GP Training Placements”
  • undertaking research and evaluation to underpin GPSA policy around:
    • member engagement strategies – “Building a Thriving Community of Practice in GP Training”
    • “Educational Interventions for the GP Supervisor”
    • 3 core themes:
      • Best Practice
      • Capacity Building and Resilience
      • Well-being and Satisfaction
  • successfully negotiating the Memorandum of Understanding and Terms of Reference for the SLO Advisory Council with ACRRM and RACGP, including financial support for state representatives to attend one face-to-face meeting per annum
  • advocacy on behalf of supervisors and training practices including (but this is far from an exhaustive list):
    • registrar placements
    • opportunities for training practice accreditation
    • implementation of new WBAs
    • ongoing need to reduce red tape
    • streamlined processes and communications to assist with accessing payments via Services Australia
    • improved access to remittance advices for NCP payments 
  • continuing to refine and build on GPSA’s repository of best practice supervision and employment resources.

If you would like to know more about any of this work, please use the form on this page to contact Carla and myself.
In the meantime, wishing you all the best as Semester 1 wraps up and we move into the second half of 2023.

Date reviewed: 28 September 2023

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.

This website uses cookies. Read our privacy policy.