MD - Primary Care Community Base Training (Information for GPs and Practice Staff)

---

All MD students allocated to the Northern and Western Clinical Schools attend a general practice (Primary Care Community Base) for one day per week during years two and three of the course.

The learning objectives of this placement are:

• To learn about the community context of health care within the standard medical curriculum
• To understand the patient journey through the health care system, both between community health services, and between the community and hospital settings
• To learn about continuity and the breadth of primary care
• To be part of a multi-disciplinary primary health care team and understand inter-professional practice
• To contribute to the work of the clinic
• To participate in improving the health of the local community
• To have a community-based clinician mentor
• To have access to a broad range of community health services attached to the community

 

Year 2 of the MD represents the students’ first exposure to clinical medicine in the hospital and community settings. The students complete a Foundation term before commencing hospital rotations through ambulatory care, medicine and surgery. During this time, they are supported by three tutors per student group:

• Clinical Skills Tutor (weekly tutorials to develop clinical skills)
• Ethical Practice Tutor (weekly tutorials to develop ethical and empathic skills)
• PCCB Tutor (monthly tutorials to support the learning that occurs during PCCB placement days)

 

If you are interested in becoming a tutor either for PCCB or for the final year MBBS students in 2013, please contact one of the teaching team.

 

Primary Care Community Base team roles
The PCCB placements are coordinated by two distinct but collaborating groups:

1. Department of General Practice (DGP), University of Melbourne
2. Western and Northern Clinical Schools, University of Melbourne

The respective responsibilities are divided, where the DGP is coordinating the PCCB clinics and the Clinical Schools are coordinating the students. Therefore, all inquiries about clinics should be directed to DGP, and all inquires about student issues and by students should be directed to the relevant Clinical School. The two groups will communicate regularly with each other about all issues.

 

Allocation Process

[TOP]
Practices have been clustered into groups that are located closely geographically, and each group of practices have been allocated to a student group at each clinical school. In order to allocate individual students or pairs to practices, students were asked to browse through the practice profiles for the practices in their group, and decide who will attend each practice. The practice chosen by each student will become their community base until the end of year three of the course.

 

Term Dates

[TOP]

Year 2 PCCB Dates 2013

Once 2^nd year students have been allocated to an individual practice they are asked to make contact with the practice to introduce themselves and confirm their first visit. All students will attend their practice twice during the first term (week commencing 18^th March for the Western students and week commencing 25^th March for the Northern students). They will then attend one day per week from week 10 of the course (week commencing 15^th April 2013).

Week beginning	PCP 2 Rotation	PCCB activity
4th February	Foundation term	Introduction lecture
11th March	Foundation	1st PCCB tutorial, and meet the GP event
18th March	Foundation	First PCCB visit (Western Students)
25th March	Foundation	First PCCB visit (Northern Students) Second PCCB visit (Western Students)
29th March - 5th April	Easter break
8th April	Foundation	Second PCCB visit (Northern Students)
15th April	Term 2 (med/surg/amb care)	Weekly PCCB visits for 8 weeks Two tutorials during the term
10th June	Intersession
17th June	Mid-year break
1st July	Student conference
8th July	Term 3  (med/surg/amb care)	Weekly PCCB visits for 8 weeks        Two tutorials during the term
2nd Sept	Intersession
9th Sept	Term 4  (med/surg/amb care)	Weekly PCCB visits for 8 weeks        Two tutorials during the term
4th Nov	Intersession

Year 3 PCCB Dates 2013 coming soon

Practice Remuneration Process

[TOP]

1. Eligible practices are entitled to claim the Practice Incentive Payment (PIP) for teaching students
2. the current rate is $100 per session up to a maximum of two sessions per day. A session is defined at a minimum of 3 hours.
3. Where there are two students placed at one practice, each student must have a different GP Supervisor for the practice to be able to claim PIP payments for both students.
4. Students and supervisors must sign an attendance form to be submitted to the student’s clinical school at the end of each rotation.
5. The Clinical School will forward the attendance form to the Department of General Practice who will generate a PIP form noting the number of sessions per student.
6. The PIP form is then sent to practices  to sign and send to Medicare