Rural general practitioner supervisors from across Tasmania gathered at Barnbougle over Sunday and Monday for a two-day workshop.
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The doctors have all volunteered to be supervisors to registrars training to become specialist GPs, and have congregated in the North-East to share their skills, knowledge and experience.
The supervisors come from small towns including Scottsdale, George Town, Longford, and Ulverstone.
Their aim is to do the best possible job at bringing forth the next generation of rural doctors, said General Practice Training Tasmania director of education Dr Kristen FitzGerald.
“These are GPs who are passionate about patient care and about the future of general practice, ensuring that there’s another generation of doctors that are ready to take on patient care,” she said.
“Rural GPs in particular are very passionate about building the workforce.
“They recognise that there are not enough GPs providing services, and the only way to build that up is to invest in registrars who are coming through.”
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A recent report released by the Royal Flying Doctor’s Service that revealed the GP shortage in rural and regional areas is expected to worsen.
However, there are also several studies that show that a doctor doing their specialist GP training in a rural area is one of the two biggest indicators for them choosing to remain in a rural area once they are fully qualified.
That means that the quality of supervision is a vital factor in encouraging young doctors to practice in rural areas, said Dr FitzGerald.
“The sort of thing that we’re talking about is: how do you give good quality positive feedback? How do you know that your registrar is practicing safely?” she said.
“We’re talking about potential difficult situations that might arise, and giving supervisors skills to manage those situations in their registrars so that their registrars are learning and the patients are receiving good-quality care.”
The two-day workshop is being held at Barnbougle, near Bridport, because General Practice Training Tasmania seeks to hold their training sessions in rural areas to ensure doctors in the regions felt supported.
Although the setting certainly didn’t hurt.
“Everyone’s got a reason to come here because it’s somewhere beautiful,” said Dr FitzGerald.
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