Clinical Supervision in Australia, an Academic Report

The Australian healthcare system depends on a general practice workforce that is broadly-skilled, well trained and appropriately distributed ⁽¹⁾. The RACGP plays a central role in setting a curriculum that defines the discipline and sets standards against which registrars are trained, and towards which medical students can aim their career paths.

Uniquely to general practice, most education and training occurs within existing GPs' private practices ^(2,3). This represents a significant burden on the GP, who take a learner into their clinic and bring them to competence while also ensuring that their business prospers. Even when the GP Supervisor does not own the clinic, their professional reputation is closely linked with the performance of their registrar ⁽⁴⁾.

This course was motivated to being developed largely in recognition of the need for GPs to be well-supported in their teaching roles while not having excessive demands placed on their time. The course has been designed to be both educationally effective and time efficient, giving participants immediately useful skills, enough theoretical understanding without being overloaded, and a renewed enthusiasm for this important role. Relationship-based education has been recognised as the most contemporary model for effective supervision, and that is what is embedded in the models presented throughout the course ⁽⁵⁾.

The course is based on the theories and models published in my chapter on Coaching Clinical Learners in the 2018 textbook referenced below ⁽⁶⁾, which in turn was developed from our successful face-to-face Graduate Certificate in Clinical Teaching. It is important to GPs in the Australian setting because it makes high quality, evidence-based supervisor training easily available in a format that recognises the demands on their time and the difficulty getting to face-to-face education. It uses videos and cases that are immediately recognisable to GPs practising in any Australian context. Most importantly, it speaks directly to GPs respectfully and meaningfully.