Volume 5

LEADING ARTICLES

Self-directed learning by trainees
Paul Sackin

Health economics: a guide for GPs through the jargon jungle
Rhiannon Edwards and John Bligh

National Association of GP Tutors: towards wisdom and health
Paul Sackin

Writing and Reading
Declan Dwyer

The teaching of palliative cancer care
David Seamark

Tomorrow’s doctors
Peter Dangerfield and John Bligh

The purchaser and provider split in general practice: towards a rational approach
Robert Hedley

Europe and training for general practice in 1995
Graham Buckley and Jan Heymann

ARTICLES

From curriculum to self-directed learning with vocational trainees: (i) Facilitating a half-day release course
Richard Savage and Suzanne Savage
In London trainees on a release course are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. Does it work?

A review of learner-centred education and its applications in primary care
Colin Coles
The elements of a learner centred approach are explained and the jargon clarified. There are plenty of useful references for those wanting to know much more.

A survey of doctors on the retainer scheme
Jamie Bahrami
Major changes are proposed to make this scheme responsive to the educational needs of participants.

Economic evaluation of drugs: helping GPs to interpret the evidence for themselves
Rhiannon Edwards and John Bligh
Enough about health economics for you to introduce the subject to your trainees. Like most things, it can actually be interestiing once you start to understand it.

Designing a questionnaire
Sean McAleer
Here is a basic description of how to design a questionnaire, along with plenty of references for further information. Keep this paper handy - you never know when you might need it.

Confessions of a postgraduate education consumer
John Salinsky
Attneding a refresher course had no obvious effect on the author’s way of practising, but was the course itself entirely to blame?

What do general practitioners think changes their clinical behaviour?
Martin Drage, Richard Wakeford and Amanda Wharton
GP’s are changing the way they do things all the time. Few of these changes appear to be prompted by educaiton. How much does this matter?

Ethical issues arising in general practice vocational training
Christopher Holmwood
There can be conflicts of interest between patients, trainees and the training programme. Resolving them is challenging but rewarding.

Learning objectives in general practice: identification of ‘wants’ and ‘needs’
John Pitts and Peter White
Most GPs seem to feel that education is about gaining new knowledge. Others in the NHS feel that wider issues are much more important. How can these ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ be combined?

Vocational training for general practice: attendance rates for release courses
William McN Styles, Janet Grant, Susan Golombok, John Rust and Tommy Bouchier-Hayes
Attnedance at the release course by hospital based GP trainees is low - and falling. Radical solutions are called for.

Learning to say ‘no’: and exercise in learning to decline inappropriate prescription requests
Colin Bradley
An exercise designed to help doctors negotiate with patients could lead to better consultations as well as savings in the drugs bill.

From curriculum to self-directed learning with vocational trainees:
(ii) Can trainees generate their own curriculum? A prospective study
Richard Savage and Suzanne Savage
The St. Thomas’s trainees succeeded in choosing topics which were highly relevant to their future careers.

(iii) South East Thames region course organizers’ assessment of trainee generated content of a half-day release course
Richard Savage and Suzanne Savage
A group of course organizers independently rated the topics chosen by the St. Thomas’s trainees as highly relevant. The principles of adult learning really seem to work!

Evaluation the outcomes of continuing education for general practice: coalition of intrest
Ali Al-Shehri, Ian Stanley and John Bligh
Providers and managers, as well as participants, have an interest in the outcome of continuing education for general practitioners. This adds an important neew dimension to evaluation.

Simulated surgery: a method for the assessment of clinical competence
Liz Bingham, Peter Burrows, Robert Caird, Neil Jackson, Gareth Holsgrove and Lesley Southgate
OSCEs have now turned into MUSCLEs. The jargon is a headache but the standardized surgeries are an easily understood, practical and useful way of assessing doctors’ competence.

Performance based assessment using simulated patients
Aly Rashid, Justin Allen, Ron Thew and Gary Aram
A novel way of assessing trainees. Actors not only play the patients, they also mark the candidates.

Consulting: top-down or bottom-up?
Martin Cosgrove
The doctors, as well as the patient, comes to the consultation with preconceived ideas. We should not feel ashamed to use them.

Pastoral assessment: a method of appraising trainees
John Claydon
How to combine rigour and user-friendliness in educational assessment throughout the three years of vocational training.

Persisting change in attitudes to teaching and consulting one year after a general practice trainers’ course
John Pitts
Trainers remained more ‘learner-centred’ a year after attending a trainers’ course.

Attempting to meet educational needs: can an attractive course be made more effective?
Bob Rivett
Detailed research at a general practitioner refresher course confirms that ‘wants’ are easier to satisfy than ‘needs’.

Joint hospital visiting: problems and solutions
Christopher Hand
Joint college visits to hospital SHO posts are wonderful in theory. Here are lots of ideas as to how they might be made to work in practice.

A learning plan format for use in continuing medical education
John Temple
GPs can benefit from constructing a simple learning plan. Here’s how to do it.

Assessment of the tutorial
Michael Ruscoe
It should be simple to adapt consultation assessment techniques to assess one to one teaching skills.

A game exploring teamwork
Joy Crosby and Andrew Eastaugh
Nille, Valle, Viktor adn Vortor help you ro understand what’s going on in the practice team.

Vocational training - teaching or supervision?
Graham Ruff
A model of training where the trainer is more like a counsellor. Most trainees thrive on it.

Introducing a four week introductory module to general practice - a personal experience
Alvin Bodner
The value of a four week attachment to general practice at the beginning of the trainee’s first hospital post outweighed the hassle of organizing it.

GPs’ views of continuing medical education in the wake of the 1990 contract: the East Anglia perspective
John Perry, Bob Berrington and Brian Goss
East Anglian GPs are not too worried about the cost of obtaining their PGEA. They like learning in small groups.

Where there is no general practitioner: training for family medicine in Latvia
Ann-Louise Kinmonth
In a country where GPs earn £500 per year the problems and excitement of GPs training is remarkably similar to those in the West.

SUPPLEMENT

An evaluation of day release courses for general practice trainees in South West Thames Region
Peter Jenkins