Demonstrating continuity of supervision is symbiotic with clinical service
A/P Lucie Walters, Flinders University Rural Clinical School, Australia*
Prof David Prideaux, Flinders University, Australia
Prof Paul Worley, Flinders University, Australia
A/P Jennene Greenhill, Flinders University Rural Clinical School, Australia
Introduction: This paper aims to consider the impact of medical students on the rural GPs who supervise them. It considers why rural GPs precept medical students, and how they manage the tension between this role and the demands of clinical service.
Methods: A total of 41 individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with GPs, practice managers and students. All interviews were audio taped, transcribed and analysed for emergent themes.
Results: In this study, preceptors identified many ways that precepting added value to their roles, however, themes relating to the doctor-student relationship, were central to GP preceptors’ experiences. These resulted in changes in the triangular relationship between doctor, patient and student in the consultation during parallel consulting.
Discussion: Rural doctors are not donkeys, influenced to supervise by carrots and sticks. The motivators for precepting represent a group of interconnected factors which contribute to defining preceptors as central members of their professional community of practice. This critical finding challenges the simplistic organisational concept that universities can recruit and retain GPs through increasing rewards.
This presentation will introduce four precepting models including: student-observer; teacher-healer; doctor-orchestrator; and doctor-advisor. And will demonstrate how these are related to the maturity of the doctorstudent relationship.
Conclusion: The evolution of doctor-student relationships in long-term student placements explains how students become more useful over the academic year and sheds light on how GPs are changed through precepting as part of the complex process of recognising themselves as central members of the rural generalist community.
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