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The day release course

Where is it?

The Oxford District full day release course takes place at the George Pickering Postgraduate Centre, Level 3, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, facilitated by programme directors Mandy Fry, Penny Moore and Meriel Raine and course manager Victoria Bentata Azaz, as well as by visiting speakers from different fields in medicine and other related disciplines.

What does it cover?

In 2007 the RCGP introduced a detailed curriculum for GP training and trainees need to become familiar with what it covers. While ensuring that topics are covered in a way that is mindful of the college curriculum, the programme directors try to provide variety in the timetable over the year, using small-group work, where trainees contribute and encourage each other, and more focused topic-based sessions resourced by local clinicians. Twice a month there is the opportunity for Self Directed Learning Groups to meet or work as they see fit.

There are also County courses, held approximately monthly with the Oxfordshire GP registrars from Banbury, on:

  • nMRCGP requirements - (see also below) 
  • Risk management
  • Child protection
  • Child Health and Development
  • Living with disability
  • Psychological medicine
  • Evidence-based medicine
  • Complementary medicine
  • Ethics
  • Minor Surgery


Over the year there is access to Family planning & sexual health (STIF) courses with trainees from the other GP schemes in the Oxford Deanery.
There is also provision of basic life support training, which is a prerequisite for the nMRCGP.
See the home page for the latest timetable.

A supportive group

As important as the content of the day-release is the fact that the course provides a protected, supportive and confidential environment for ST3s to build a peer group and learn from each other. A key aim is to help GP trainees improve their communication skills - with each other, with other colleagues, and of course with patients.

nMRCGP

GP trainees are now assessed by means of the nMRCGP.  In order to work as a GP, it is obligatory to have passed the nMRCGP, which includes successful completion of a personalised e-portfolio (a record of learning and assessments over the entire three year scheme) and the passing of the AKT and CSA examinations. For full details on the structure of the nMRCGP, including the various assessments involved over the year, see www.rcgp.org.uk. 

Do I have to attend the day-release?

Yes. Attending the day-release is part of your contract. If you choose not to attend a session,  your practice would expect you to be working with them, or to have made explicit alternative study arrangements.

Flexibility to meet your needs

Beyond the set courses and key topics, the day-release has flexibility, because the role of the GP is ever-changing, and because each group of GP trainees has different needs. As a working adult, you are much more likely to learn from problems as you encounter them, rather than in an overtly academic fashion and you will probably have developed your own learning style and preferences, as well as having gained a wealth of experience.

With this in mind, the day release course is based more on group work than on didactic lectures, so there is an emphasis on small groups in many sessions. Despite this emphasis, some things are better taught to a large group in a lecture or demonstration setting, so there is a mixture throughout the year.

We aim to widen the learning experience, so a book club, work with actors, a reflective group picnic in the country, and a trip to Tate Modern have all been included, and popular, in the past.

In the summer, ST3s visit each other's practices to explore different ways of organising and delivering care.


  
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Email: info@oxfordvts.org.uk

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