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Primary care — Year 5 course requirements

Year 5 student doctors should be involved in multiple aspects of acute care of patients, triaging under direct supervision, consulting with patients independently (with supervision), assisting clinicians during their consultations, and managing patients through the primary-secondary care journey. Please see the GP Tutor Handbook for guidance on clinical supervision, which has been emailed directly to Tutors and Practice Managers. Student doctors should have more self-directed time, with indirect supervision, to complete their Mandatory Experiences.

Leading on consultation

  • Some sessions each week should be spent leading on consultations with patients, in pairs with one Student Doctor leading the consultation, with indirect supervision of a GP (see FAQs), subsequently presenting the cases to the GP.
  • Consultations can be face- to-face, telephone, or video consultations but we prefer the majority to be face-to-face. Each pair of Student Doctors should aim to lead on consultations with approximately 9-12 patients per week, on average, over the placement. Students will need approximately 15 minutes to take a focused history and examination before presenting the case to you. The GP Tutor will then need to discuss diagnosis and management with the patient. All patients seen by Student Doctors will require formal clinician review.

Shadow and assist the on-call GP

  • This could occur in pairs or individually with different practitioners. To build on student doctors’ previous experience observing consultations in years 3 & 4, Year 5 student doctors should be tasked with assisting the GP, for example inputting consultation details into GP records, including requesting investigations. These activities require direct supervision.
  • If telephone consulting with a patient please ensure telephone consultations are audible to Student Doctors and ensure consent is given by the patient for Student Doctors to be involved, just as you would for a face-to-face consultation.

Educational supervision

  • The GP tutor will act as the student’s Educational Supervisor for their GP placement.
  • Please visit the Educational Supervisors section for more details.

Year 5 mandatory student experiences

  • These are essential activities that the student doctors MUST experience during the placement. They should be achievable within the 4 weeks of the placement as they are commonplace aspects of a practice’s daily and weekly activity.
  • Each should be followed by an informal debrief or discussion with a GP. Reflection will be documented in their e-portfolio.
  • For further details on these mandatory experiences please see the the GP Tutor Handbook which has been emailed directly to Tutors and Practice Managers.