GP education and upskilling

If you are developing or providing education for GPs or would like to, there are some important things to know.

The RCH has two part-time GPs who can advise on the content and relevance of a programme to GPs.

We also have an alliance with the five top referring GP divisions to the RCH (see below). This means there is an opportunity to educate the GPs who refer most to the RCH ED and OPD.

CPD accreditation

GPs need to get 130 educational points in a 3 year cycle through the RACGP CPD programme.

An event is much more attractive if these points are attached but this can only be done by an endorsed provider. We can help you arrange this.

Approximately 2-6 points are attached to each education hour. There are 2 categories of points:

Category 1 points -
- GPs have to get at least 40 of these in the 3 year cycle. They are more complex to arrange and harder for GPs to get (eg. active learning modules, small group education). For more information, go to RACGP CPD.
- An activity with category 1 points attached is generally in more demand.
Category 2 points -
- Generally less complex (eg. lectures). Again, for more information go to RACGP CPD.

Working with Divisions

Victoria is divided geographically into 29 'Divisions of GP'. Each Division looks after/educates GPs in their area.

Divisions of GP can help with:

CPD points accreditation.
Promotion and advertising.
Hosting.

Kids Connect can help you liaise with the most relevant Divisions for your programme.

Format and content advice

From a GP survey and discussion with GPs, these are some educational content preferences:

GPs prefer interactional activities, sometimes finding the question and answer session at the end of a lecture more helpful than the lecture itself.
Case based lectures are much more popular than straight lectures.
GPs like an educational activity to be very relevant to their practice. The best outcome is when they feel they have come away with several 'tools' to help management,diagnosis and referral. Therefore, any information not directly related to what a GP has to do, should be kept to a minimum.
GPs obviously embrace evidence based medicine but also need to have a very broad based knowledge of many areas. Therefore details of how research is done and how medical statistics are achieved are not such a priority to most. Overviews of research design and study findings should be kept to a minimum. The conclusions are what most GPs want to know, and most are often prepared to accept a medical statistic is valid, if they respect the opinion of the doctor facilitating the educational activity.
Details and pictures of surgical procedures are very popular with a few but most are only interested in those details/pictures which are relevant to GP aftercare.
This is also an ideal opportunity to inform GPs of your department preferences and facilities, for instance promoting pre-referral guidelines. The more informed GPs are on how to access information/facilities and the easier it is, the more likely they are to use them.
Using these 'tools' will then lead to better primary care management and more appropriate referrals.

Practical preferences for session times and venues include:

Evenings between 6.30pm and 9.00pm Mondays to Thursdays.
School term times.
Venue as near as possible to the group of GPs who you want to attend.

Also remember to reference/include:

And please consider rural/ regional and other GPs:

Putting resources and written presentations online (through Kids Connect or GP learnings).
Podcasting the event (again, Kids Connect can help).

Contact 'Kids Connect' for more information.

Last Updated 22-Apr-2009. Authorised by: Annie Moulden. Enquiries: Susan Jury.