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- Page navigation anchor for Medical students: the most underutilised resource in the NHSMedical students: the most underutilised resource in the NHSThere are ongoing debates on whether expanding the roles of other healthcare professionals can reduce doctors' workload, and who should fund these professionals.1-4 We do not realise we have been under-using one valuable resource in the NHS: our medical students!After completing medical electives in North America, I feel impressed by how our counterparts utilise medical students at work. For example, during a hospital placement, a year 3 medical student works for free as a clinical clerk, who helps to clerk new patients, prepare discharge summaries, and manage the day-to-day care of his assigned patients. Students are required to work full-time hours, which include buddying up with the junior doctors (called ‘residents’ in North America) in their on-call shifts. In return, the junior doctors spend time supervising and teaching the students on the job. This model not only empowers students and improves their clinical experience, but also reduces the workload and reinforce continued education of doctors. Many students I encountered find these responsibilities and practical learning experience valuable to their career.I have enthusiastically shared this idea with my British colleagues, who tend to respond with ‘we are not the Americans’ that end the conversations. But I see British nursing students actively involved in patient care like a registered nurse. Recently,...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.
- Page navigation anchor for Patients acceptance of physician associatesPatients acceptance of physician associatesWe read with interest the study by Jackson et al1 exploring the barriers and facilitators to integration of physician associates (PAs) into the general practice workforce. We have a similar interest given that the first cohort of PAs trained at Newcastle University will graduate in October 2018 and the Northeast of England has a well-known shortage of GPs. We have completed a pilot study of patients’ awareness and acceptance of PAs and PA consultations in two County Durham practices. Patients were asked to complete a short anonymous survey while waiting in the waiting room of the two practices. The survey included some information about the role and an opportunity for free text comments and there were 72 responders.The results showed that 58% of patients had not heard of a PA, in spite of the fact that both practices had a PA student attached to the practice one day a week. 65% of responding patients were accepting of a PA consultation, 18% felt they would like to know more about the role first, 14% would rather wait for a Nurse Practitioner or GP appointment even if they had to wait longer, and 3% preferred to wait for a GP only. There were some caveats around appointment choice expressed in free text comments, such as ‘it would depend on my ailment’, but in conclusion, results showed a general acceptance of PA consultations, in a population unfamiliar with the role.Our...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.
- Page navigation anchor for Barriers and facilitators to integration of physician associates into the general practice workforce: a grounded theory approachBarriers and facilitators to integration of physician associates into the general practice workforce: a grounded theory approachWe have observed first-hand the barriers to integration of physician associates into the general practice workforce described by Jackson and collegues.1 Despite a strong emphasis on primary care within our physician associate course, a paucity of local primary care positions resulted in all but one of our first cohort of qualified physician associates being appointed to posts within two local secondary care trusts.We have appointed a clinical leadership fellow to work with stakeholders in developing roles for physician associates and we are striving to create an environment in which physician associates become an established part of the primary care workforce.Since the establishment of secondary care roles for physician associates within the two local trusts, we have observed unprecedented interest from secondary care with almost all trusts in our area planning to create roles for physician associates. We hope that we will see this process replicated in primary care and that by developing ‘pioneer programmes’ to introduce physician associates to the primary care workforce within our region, we can demonstrate to the rest of our general practice colleagues how the barriers to physician associate integration can be managed and that physician associates themselves can become the facilitators of a dynamic, sustainable general practice workforce for the future.Competing Interests: None declared.