Teaching and Training (clinical supervisors OOH)
Your out of hours work may involve you in the educational supervision of GP registrars. If you perform this role you should highlight it in Section 2 of your on-line appraisal documentation. If you are a GP trainer In-Hours you just need to record the last time you had a re-approval visit. If you are not a trainer the following section will help you to record your input into training OOH.
You may download a template here.
The following example could be used annually in your appraisal – allowing your appraisal to cover “whole practice”:-
Date of training course for educational supervision
January 2013
How often do you have a registrar to supervise?
I work 2 shifts per week and registrars attend on average about every other session
Short summary of how this works in your case
The session the registrars attend is usually my mixed base and telephone triage session. This works extremely well as the registrar has exposure to both types of consultation. The registrar initially performs triage with me sitting next to them and when they become more experienced they triage alone and report back to me between cases. There is undoubtedly an initial reduction in the volume of work but this is more than compensated later when we are able to work in tandem. The base consults are a mixture of supervised and independent practice and the workload issue mirrors that of the telephone triage.
I have 30 minutes built into the end of my shift to complete any paperwork and to discuss cases with the registrar.
Reflections on the process
I enjoy sessions with the registrar in the main, there is a lightening of my workload and I then have the opportunity to use the time saved to supervise and help the registrar to the appropriate extent. I sometimes need to take over to speed up the consultations if demand is high but this is the exception rather than the rule. I would be happy to do more of this.
Do you need to change your practice in this area?
I don’t think so – I am learning about the process of supervision and feel that I have sufficient time to do this.
Many doctors perform duties both in and out of hours, this could have an impact on health if hours are overly long or stressful. You may wish to discuss this with your appraiser, in particular dealing with the extent of your working week, strategies to deal with stress and any particular issues around balance between in-hours and out of hours working times.
If you are working only in OOH you may wish to reflect on any health issues arising out of shift work and how you avoid stress related to possible “professional isolation”
You can download a simple template here.
Summary of working week
I work both for my practice and perform some out of hours duties (as detailed in “my activities”). I work four days a week in practice with Tuesdays off. I tend to relax on my day off either doing gardening or DIY around the house, swimming or occasionally I do some locum work in practices locally (I have done this for the past 3 years).
My out of hours work consist of a regular Monday evening session (6-12pm) and occasional weekend work when usually I am contacted at short notice to cover other colleagues that are unable to fulfil their sessions.
Does work impinge on home and social life?
I have a young family and I would like to keep my weekends free, the regular Monday evenings have some impact in that usually I attend the OOH centre straight from work at the surgery. Apart from that I have the Tuesday evening to myself and usually pick the children up from school and more often than not we will have an activity planned that evening. I also finish early on a Thursday and am home just after the children. Overall there is some impact but not significant and as time progresses it is less and easier. OOH is now less onerous than previous arrangements.
Are there any issues that need further discussion?
As declared in my main appraisal documents I have no current health issues and my OOH work does not seem to add a burden.