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Background: General practitioners (GPs) have played an integral role in Australia's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic response. However, little is known about how GPs themselves have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to increase our understanding of the experiences of GPs working during the COVID-19 pandemic., Methods: A qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews. Using purposive sampling, 15 GPs from South-Eastern Australia were asked to reflect on their experiences during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interview transcripts underwent thematic analysis., Results: Five main themes were identified: fear of infection; uncertainty and information overload; impacts on the government-GP relationship; impacts on the patient-doctor relationship; and teamwork within practices and among GPs., Conclusions: The 15 GPs interviewed in this study provided valuable insights into their experiences working during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. From these insights, four recommendations propose what could be done to help support GPs to respond to a pandemic while continuing to deliver primary health care.

Background: The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' Standards for general practice training require supervisor continuing professional development (PD) to meet the needs of the individual supervisors and develop the supervisory team., Objective: The aim of this article is to explore current supervisor PD and consider how it might better meet the outcomes described in the standards., Discussion: General practitioner supervisor PD delivered by regional training organisations (RTOs) continues to operate without a national curriculum. It is predominantly workshop based and is complemented in some RTOs by online modules. Workshop learning is important for supervisor identity formation and establishing and maintaining communities of practice. Current programs are not structured to deliver individualised supervisor PD or develop the in-practice supervision team. Supervisors may struggle to translate workshop learning into changes in their practice. An in-practice quality improvement intervention facilitated by a visiting medical educator has been developed to address weaknesses in current supervisor PD. This intervention is ready to be trialled and further evaluated.

Introduction and Aim: The Australian general practitioner (GP) teaching workforce will need to expand in order to provide for the increasing number of medical students and doctors-in-training. Understanding factors that motivate GPs to become involved in teaching in their clinical practice environments is important for developing recruitment and retention strategies., Method: Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cross section of GP teachers and were subjected to thematic analysis. Themes were identified and further classified as motivations and prerequisites for teaching., Results: The desire to update clinical knowledge was the most frequently mentioned motivation for teaching, and was described as a strategy for GP teachers to preserve clinical competence through the opportunity to learn new aspects of medicine from junior colleagues. Other motivations included personal fulfillment and enjoyment of teaching, the opportunity to pass on general practice skills and knowledge, promoting general practice as a career, and fulfilling a sense of responsibility to the profession and community. Peers, students and patients also influenced the decision to teach. Most GPs identified that time, workload, availability of space and adequate financial remuneration were prerequisites for teaching. Practice owners also often determined the GP teachers' capacity to teach., Discussion: To increase the recruitment and retention of GP teachers, it is recommended that teaching organisations give more recognition to teaching as a clinical professional development activity, place more emphasis on GPs' personal enjoyment, professional responsibility and pride in teaching, and increase engagement with practice owners., (© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background The Prevocational General Practice Placement programme ( PGPPP) aims to provide junior doctors with professional, well-supervised, educational rotations in general practice. There is a paucity of literature evaluating the educational effectiveness of the PGPPP. This study aims to compare general practice rotations with hospital rotations, with respect to teaching and support, acquisition of skills and knowledge, and role autonomy. Methods All junior doctors who participated in a PGPPP rotation were invited to complete a voluntary anonymous online survey using the Postgraduate Hospital Educational Environment Measure ( PHEEM) inventory. The PHEEM presents Likert scales grouped into four subscales for participants to rate statements about their rotations. Surveys were completed at the end of the year in which doctors undertook a PGPPP rotation, and covered all rotations. These survey findings were used to compare general practice and hospital rotations. Results In all four subscales of teaching, clinical skills, social support and role autonomy, the general practice rotation performed as well as, or better than, hospital rotations in the areas of emergency, medicine, and surgery. General practice outperformed all other rotations in 15 out of 20 statements across all subscales. Discussion This study demonstrates the educational value of a general practice placement in comparison with hospital placements. Expansion of the PGPPP should be considered to provide all junior doctors with the benefits of exposure to generalist skills in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on various business models and ideas that are needed for the success of sustainable general practice vocational training supervision in Australia. The role of the general practitioner supervisor is to train people who will form part of the future general practice workforce. The changes to the basic model of training include such approaches as competence-base learning, electronic (e)-learning, and vertical integration.

The article discusses research done on the vertical integration of teaching and clinical training in general practice in Australia. The study procedure included a survey of regional training providers (RTPs). Results indicated the development by 11 RTPs of vertical integration initiatives while others urged registrars to teach medical students and junior doctors.

The article explores resilience and job satisfaction among primary care physicians who work in medically underserved areas in Australia for long periods of time. According to the authors, most of the doctors interviewed for the study revealed distancing themselves from self-sacrifice and altruism concepts. They reveal that the doctors' approach to their work can be classified as prosociality which refers to helping behaviors that are defined more by observable actions rather than motivation.