During the period spent in General Practice, time is made available to gain experience outside the practice in areas such as Social Services, Community Medicine and the Primary Care Trust.

Study leave rules

Local Educational Support Courses are held on Wednesday afternoons in York. The GP Registrars and the majority of SHOs (if given permission from their Consultants) are free to participate in a wide variety of workshops and Training sessions. The subjects covered rotate around a three-year curriculum, but new topics, based on feed-back from the GP Registrars, are regularly added to suit the needs of those currently on the Scheme.

Joint whole day sessions, shared between the York and Scarborough schemes, occur four times in every six months, alternating between each site..

A list of these sessions for each six month period is produced by the Trainers' workshop after consultation with the new GP registrar cohort, to adapt to each group’s individual educational needs. This is then circulated to the GP Registrars.

One-to-one teaching takes place within each Practice, when the GP Registrar is in his/her six month GP attachment. Special "protected" teaching time is put aside by the Trainer, when a special curriculum is used as a guide to offer a thorough and consistent approach to the learning process. This consists of two tutorials every week, each lasting about 90 minutes. The GP Registrar is encouraged to do some preparation work for some of the areas covered and the learning within this framework is a very active process.

A wide variety of modern teaching techniques, such as video consultation analysis, random case analysis and one-to-one tutorials, are employed.

Each speciality offers its own programme of training, during the time spent in hospital posts, when the various specialists have their own weekly teaching sessions for their junior staff.

In addition to this, there are regular meetings for all the staff, held in the Postgraduate Centre, each week.

Over the past 25 years GP Registrars have produced a number of outstanding projects during the two periods of six months spent in General Practice. The GP Registrar is expected to produce a Project in line with national assessment criteria. This can cover any subject relevant to General Practice, and previous projects have covered clinical, psychiatric, sociological and management areas.

During the 12 months period in General Practice, the GP Registrar will have plenty of opportunity to record his/her consultations and discuss the consultation style with the Trainer.  This is performed at regular intervals throughout the two six month attachments and the Trainer will offer support for the GP Registrar in producing a video for Summative Assessment, if this is the preferred method of assessment, or alternatively for the MRCGP examination module on consultation skills.

There are educational sessions every Tuesday lunchtime, when local General Practitioners meet up in the York Postgraduate Centre. These are given by a variety of both local and guest speakers, and a wide range of both clinical and topical medical subjects are covered. The equivalent also occurs at Scarborough.

Lunch is available, and the occasion presents an excellent opportunity to mix with both GPs and hospital doctors before the lecture commences. These lectures are always very popular and GP Registrars are actively encouraged to attend them.