Good help: a model for providing in-consultation supervision of general practice trainees

ABSTRACT

Timely clinical supervision of trainee consultations plays a key role in ensuring the safety of patients under the care of general practice trainees, and in trainee learning and professional development. Trainee requests for assistance during their consultations present supervisors with a number of challenges, however, and a number of factors act as barriers to, or reduce the utility of, this in-consultation assistance from the trainee’s perspective. Face-to-face supervision in the presence of the patient presents particular challenges and opportunities. It is important to address barriers to trainee help-seeking and improve both trainee and supervisor skills in promoting safe, effective and efficient in-consultation supervision. We introduce a model (β-LACTAM) to assist supervisors in planning and delivering their face-to-face in-consultation supervision. The recent evidence which informed the development of this model is outlined, and some preliminary findings from a pilot of β-LACTAM in Australian general practice training are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• general practice training
• clinical supervision

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge General Practice Training Queensland and Northern Territory General Practice Education, in particular Drs Justin Coleman, Sarah Kay, Marie-Louise Dick, John Buckley and Lina Zbaidi, for their support with the evaluation of the tools.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research project is supported by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners with funding from the Australian Government under the Australian General Practice Training program.