Teaching

Our Student Placements

We have one of Australia’s largest general practice placement programs, which ensures all our MD students receive exposure to general practice from early on in their medical training.

Location

Teaching practices are located in metropolitan and rural areas across Victoria, providing our students with the opportunity to learn clinical skills in diverse settings.

Aims

The GP placement program aims to:

1. Enable the student to apply theoretical and other knowledge gained from their course of study in a practical setting.
2. Undertake activities consistent with the course objectives.
3. Provide the student with a range of clinical experiences in a community setting.

Placement details

MD Year 1: Longitudinal Clinical Placement

Placement length: Twelve days per student
Placement period: March - October

Students attend your practice once a fortnight (on a Tuesday or Thursday) throughout the year with breaks for assessment and holidays. There are two streams (A and B) on alternating weeks. You can elect to host students in either stream A or B or both.

While we encourage students to work with all members of your care team, we ask that students spend at least half of each placement day working with their GP supervisor.

For many students, it is their first opportunity to work with real patients.  We believe that providing a longitudinal placement early in the MD course enhances students’ appreciation of the role of GPs in the health care system, and we hope that this results in a higher uptake of general practice as a future career.

MD Year 3: General Practice Block

Placement length: 20 hours per week for six weeks.
Placement period: Any of six rotations, between February - October

The GP Block placement is the general practice specialty training for students in the penultimate year of the MD. The objective of this placement is to develop medical students' knowledge and skills in primary health care. Students participate in all practice activities and meet regularly with GP supervisors to review progress and receive feedback. Supervisors complete three formal assessments of students throughout the placement. Learning will predominantly occur in the practice through:

• Advanced history taking and examination (including some independent or parallel consulting);
• Formulating a problem list and determining diagnoses;
• Constructing a management plan that ensures that the goals of optimum acute care, preventative care and continuing care are met;
• Contributing to chronic disease management plans;
• Spending time with nursing, allied health, pharmacy and other practice functions such as home visits, clinical audits and research.

GP Supervisor, Practice Manager and Nurse Training

To support our supervisors, we have an online Supervisor Community where supervisors can access a range of resources to support them in supervising our students. When you are allocated a student, you will be given access to the community.

If you are not sure of your login credentials or you are new to supervising medical students, please submit your details below and the Teaching & Learning Team will be in contact to arrange access.

Request access to the Supervisor Community