Opportunities to contribute to undergraduate MBChB General Practice Student Education
The Undergraduate Medical School is looking to recruit keen General Practice educators to the Medical Curriculum.
This page outlines a number of excellent opportunities to get involved with undergraduate General Practice student education.
The Medical School is greatly appreciative of the contributions made by those who assist with the teaching and assessment of our students.
Although the 2024-2025 academic year is already underway, there are still opportunites to become involved with SSCs, Electives, Year 4/5 placements, OSCE examining and Admissions interviews.
Notes of interest are welcome throughout the year for all areas of teaching.
If you would like to find out more about the opportunities available, please contact us at: gpteachingopps@glasgow.ac.uk
Years 1 & 2 Vocational Studies (campus based)
About:
Vocational Studies (VS) is an integral part of Year 1 and Year 2 medical student education, covering clinical examination skills, ethics, professional values, communication skills, and early patient contact.
VS is taught during term times on Tuesdays (am and pm), Wednesdays (am), and Thursdays (am and pm). It involves small group teaching with 8-9 students meeting with their tutor weekly throughout the academic year. Most tutors undertake one session a week, primarily in the Wolfson Medical School Building, although some clinical skills sessions and project work are undertaken at GP practices.
It is ideal if prospective tutors are already associated with a practice in the West of Scotland which can be used as a base for teaching clinical skills and finding patients for coursework projects.
Payment:
Remuneration is £200 per session - payments are made as personal fees by the university.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs and non-GPs with at least 5 years clinical experience - from the Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
Please see the following link to apply.
Please note there is no definitive closing date as we may have vacancies during the academic year.
The recruitment cycle for those interested in becoming a VS tutor for the 2024-2025 academic year (starting September 2024) has now closed. We would still welcome enquiries as we often have additional vacancies during the year ( e.g. for maternity cover) and would ask that you email the following to express interest: gpteachingopps@glasgow.ac.uk
Years 1 & 2 Associate Teaching Practices (practice based)
About:
Associate Teaching Practices (ATPs) provide the context for students in Years 1 and 2 to explore the role of general practice in the community and provide access to patients for clinical teaching.
Students are always accompanied by their own Vocational Studies tutor who is medically trained and provides the clinical teaching. The tutors are typically salaried GPs who do not have their own practice. There are normally four to eight students on each visit.
The ATP would need to identify and recruit appropriate patients and provide a suitable teaching room. In Year 1 there are 5 sessions and Year 2 there are 4 sessions where an ATP is required.
Payment:
Remuneration is £130 per session and is paid gross by the health board.
Who can apply:
Open to GP Practices from the Greater Glasgow & Clyde health board.
How to apply:
Notes of interest are welcome throughout the year via: med-sch-vs@glasgow.ac.uk.
Year 2 Health Inequalities Student Selected Component (practice based)
About:
We run a SSC (student selected component) module every January on Health Inequalities for a large group of Year 2 medical students; to give them the opportunity to get a sense of the impact of poverty, and the social determinants of health.
We are looking for 1-4 medical students to spend one session with a practice (whichever suits you and your Practice). The student(s) would learn more about what it is like to be a GP in the 'deep end' or with 'deep end' patients. They don't have to stay with the GP for the full session; they could also spend time with other colleagues, such as e.g., the Community Link Worker. In previous years student feedback about this learning experience has been extremely positive and has motivated students to consider a career in General Practice.
Payment:
Remuneration is £85 per student and is paid gross by the health board.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs from deep-end practices within the Greater Glasgow & Clyde health board.
How to apply:
Notes of interest are welcome throughout the year via: med-gp-ssc@glasgow.ac.uk.
Year 3 Clinical Practice in the Community (practice based)
About:
Groups of students will attend your practice for a total of four days between September and January on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays.
The days students have in practice should be focused on 'student led' surgeries to allow students to practice their history taking, examination and procedural skills. Students will be expected to obtain practice in phlebotomy and IM injection technique. Students should have an opportunity to talk to at least one patient with multimorbid health care issues, face to face or remotely, so they can gain insight into the impact of chronic illness on patients physical, emotional, and social functioning.
Students really enjoy this general practice placement and the experience they gain from talking to and examining real patients for the first time.
What do practices sign-up for?
- Practices can sign-up to host 1-4 cohorts (2-8 groups of students).
- Each group will consist of either 2, 3 or 4 students.
- Each group of students would have 4 vistits, which would take place on the following dates.
Payment:
Remuneration is £680 per student and is paid gross by the health board.
Who can apply
Open to fully qualified GPs from the Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
Notes of interest are welcome throughout the year via: med-sch-gp-placements@glasgow.ac.uk.
Year 3 Communication Skills (campus based)
About:
This course builds on the communication skills which the students have practiced as part of Vocational Studies in Year 1 and Year 2.
Communication Skills tutors work with small groups of 8-9 students and will tackle more demanding scenarios such as: breaking bad news, difficult communication, and ethical dilemmas. This third-year course is delivered over five sessions on Tuesdays (am & pm) or Thursdays (am & pm) running from September to December.
Ideally, tutors will register for one group of students (e.g., five sessions), however there may be some flexibility if not all five dates are convenient. The course is based in the Medical School and does not involve practice-based teaching.
Payment:
Remuneration is £200 per session - payments are made as personal fees by the university.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs and non-GPs with at least 5 years clinical experience - from the Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
Notes of interest are welcome throughout the year via: med-sch-y3comms@glasgow.ac.uk.
Year 3 Virtual Tutorials (online)
About:
Virtual Tutorial content is based around recorded real-life GP consultations (professionally curated full length teaching videos from the TV series “Behind Closed Doors”). During tutorial time students and tutors consider learning outcomes for each tutorial by discussing the cases seen and working through the associated online learning content provided by the University.
- Virtual Tutorials run for a total of 12 Wednesday and Friday mornings between September and January.
- Group 1 session runs from 9.30-11.00am and the Group 2 session runs from 11.30-1.00pm.
- Tutors can opt to teach one or two groups on the Wednesday and/or Friday.
- Each week the same content will be taught to all groups of students.
- Tutors will teach a group of c8 students for each tutorial.
- Each group of students will remain the same throughout the 12 week period.
Payment:
Remuneration is £160 per tutorial - payments are made as personal fees by the university.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs from the Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
Notes of interest are welcome throughout the year via: med-sch-gp-placements@glasgow.ac.uk.
Years 3 & 4 Electives (practice based)
About:
Students complete two four-week electives - one at the end of Year 3 (Junior) and the other at the end of Year 4 (Senior). The elective periods are as follows:
- Junior from Monday 26/06/2023 until Friday 25/08/2023
- Senior from Monday 10/07/2023 until Friday 25/08/2023
During the 4-week General Practice and Primary Care Elective, students must spend a minimum of 2 days per week in clinical practice. This could be 2 full days or 4 half-days per week. If practices have capacity for students to spend more days in clinical practice, then that would be beneficial.
- These electives could be based entirely in General Practice or be Primary Care related with a broad remit.
- if undertaking an elective abroad, an opportunity to consider the impact of the healthcare system on illness.
- You could have a blended elective with spending time in GP practice along with time in other services (e.g., addictions, sexual health, palliative care).
- You could choose to cover one of the topics you did not pick from the GP SSC menu and would have access to the resources created by the SSC team.
- On non-clinical days students should undertake self-directed learning using the following suggested activities.
The GP Electives Lead may be able to provide suggestions and practices to contact, but students are responsible for finding a suitable practice for their elective.
Payment:
ONLY practices within Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Highland, and Lanarkshire health boards may be eligible for remuneration.
Practices within the above health boards may be eligible to receive an elective fee payment of £450 (the Medical School should know by early to mid-May each academic year if this is something we are able to remunerate - practices should contact the GP Electives Administrator via: med-gp-electives@glasgow.ac.uk to find out if they are eligible for this payment).
Electives outside of the above health boards are not eligible for payment.
To sign-up:
By providing your practice details, this will enable students to contact your practice, although it is important to note that you are not obliged to host them if the dates are not mutually suitable. If you are happy for your practice to be included in this database, it would be very helpful if you could please complete the following online form.
If you have any questions, please contact: med-gp-electives@glasgow.ac.uk
Years 3 & 4 Student Selected Components (practice based)
About:
Student Selected Components (SSCs) are modules selected by students within the MBChB curriculum.
Menu based SSCs:
Are 5-week blocks selected by students from a wide range of available options.
The Year 4 blocks cover the following topics 'General Practice' and (1) Adolescent health, (2) Clinical Reasoning, (3) Deep end practice, (4) Gender based violence & (5) Leadership and run from:
- Block 1: 04/09/2023 to 06/10/2023
- Block 2: 09/10/2023 to 10/11/2023
- Block 3: 13/11/2023 to 15/12/2023
- Block 4: 08/01/2024 to 09/02/2024
The Year 3 blocks cover the following topics 'General Practice' and (1) Deep end patients including slants e.g., addictions and common mental health issues, (2) Frailty and care of the elderly, (3) LGBTQI & Intersectionality, (4) Multimorbidity and treatment burden and (5) Realistic medicine and run from:
- Block 1: 12/02/2024 to 15/03/2024
- Block 2: 18/03/2024 to 03/05/2024 (N.B. holiday from 29/03/2024 - returning on 15/04/2024)
- Block 3: 07/05/2024 to 07/06/2024
During the module students learn about every day general practice. For the remaining time they work through a self-directed package of learning which includes a variety of media: articles, webinars, podcasts, and videos on the chosen topic. The student also undertakes a project of their choice within this topic and delivers a presentation to the GP practice. The GP supervisor does not need to be an expert in the topic (e.g., gender-based violence), rather, the student uses the topic as a ‘hook’ to focus their learning, but the intention is for them to learn about general practice as well. The expectation is that the GP supervisor will provide one hour’s supervision per week for the student and assess the written final submission. Being a supervisor is not an onerous task and feedback is very positive.
How many days per week does a student spend in practice?
For non-COMET SSCs the student is based in practice for two days per week.
For COMET SSCs the student is based practice for three days per week (information about COMET can be found here).
Self-proposed SSCs:
Students have the option to self-propose a topic of their choice and they require GP supervisors to host them in the community. The Medical School GP teaching team support the students to develop their intended learning if needed. If you have a specific expertise/interest to offer students, this is a great way to try it out!
Payment:
Is paid gross by the health board.
- Non-COMET SSCs (2 days per week in practice for 5 weeks) - remuneration is £1,700 per student.
- COMET SSCs (3 days per week in practice for 5 weeks) - remuneration is £2,550 per student.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs from the Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Highland and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
Applications are welcome throughout the year.
To apply please complete the Brief CV Form and Tutor Application Form and email your completed forms to: med-gp-ssc@glasgow.ac.uk.
Years 3, 4 & 5 COMET GP Longitudinal Placements (practice based)
About:
Information about the Community Orientated Medical Experience Track (COMET) can be found here.
The GP Longitudinal Placement is a unique experience for students and GP supervisors. We are looking for GPs to host a COMET student from Year 3 to finals, and Preparation for Practice.
The student would visit the practice for one day per month, for 2 years. Students will benefit from being embedded within one surgery – becoming part of the team – while getting an authentic experience of General Practice.
Payment:
Remuneration is £170 per day per student and is paid gross by the health board.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs from the Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
Applications are welcome throughout the year.
To apply please complete the Brief CV Form and Tutor Application Form and email your completed forms to: med-sch-comet@glasgow.ac.uk.
Years 3, 4 & 5 OSCE Examinations (campus and hospital based)
About:
The involvement of experienced GPs in our assessment processes is essential for the provision of suitably trained and evaluated medical graduates to the Health Service.
Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are a fundamental component of the University of Glasgow’s summative assessment of student's clinical skills throughout the undergraduate medical curriculum.
Candidates are observed and evaluated as they go through a series of stations and perform a variety of clinical tasks and interview, examine and treat actors or volunteer patients who present with a medical problem.
Examiners play a vital role in the OSCE process in delivering a reliable and fair assessment process and prior to examining are required to:
- undertake examiner training.
- have up-to-date Equality and Diversity Training, and forward on evidence of this.
- examine half or full day OSCE sessions as agreed.
- carefully observe all candidates' performances for the duration of the OSCE station.
Payment:
Remuneration is £200 per session - payments are made as personal fees by the university.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs from the Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
To undertake training and be added to the GP OSCE examiner mailing list, please contact: gpteachingopps@glasgow.ac.uk.
Years 4 & 5 Clinical Placements (practice based)
About:
One student is based in your general practice for five continuous weeks as part of the clinical rotation which spans the final two years of the curriculum. The emphasis of the rotation is on student-centered learning, and supervisors will help students to identify learning objectives for the attachment.
Supervisors are asked to spend one hour each week reviewing the student’s progress – helping them to meet their learning objectives, discussing portfolio cases (two required in five weeks) and providing feedback on and assessment of their general performance.
The usual week will also include four ‘teaching surgeries’ (with the supervisor or other partners), where extra time is allowed for discussion and teaching, and a short ‘student surgery’ where the student conducts the consultation and is given constructive feedback. Students are encouraged to lead all, or part of, as many consultations with patients as possible. The remainder of the week is allocated for personal study time or for ‘flexible sessions’, where students may undertake various activities, agreed in consultation with their supervisor. Input to learning is expected from the whole practice team.
There are eight GP blocks during the academic year, but practices may offer as many or as few placements as they wish: the average is two to three per year.
Payment:
Remuneration is £3,825 per student and is paid gross by the health board.
Who can apply:
Open to fully qualified GPs from the Ayrshire & Arran, Dumfries & Galloway, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Highland and Lanarkshire health boards.
How to apply:
Applications are welcome throughout the year.
To apply please complete the Brief CV Form and Tutor Application Form and email your completed forms to: med-sch-gp-placements@glasgow.ac.uk.
Honorary Status: invitation is for colleagues who are not yet honorary members of staff at the University of Glasgow. You are eligible if you have been on the GP performers list for 5 years prior to your application date.