A way to ‘give back’ to general practice

For Dr Subana Amirthanandan, mentoring her fellow GPs is a ‘great way to give back to the profession’.
 
The New South Wales GP is part of the RACGP’s Fellow Support Service, a program aimed at providing support to doctors with practice-related issues post-Fellowship.
 
The service offers advice, education, supervision and mentoring support to members in areas including conditions on medical registration, returning to practice, and changes in scope of practice.
 
While the RACGP has run this service for many years, it has not been widely known about.
 
Associate Professor Janani Mahadeva, National Lead Medical Educator for the Fellow Support Service, said the team’s aim is to ensure Fellows ‘have access to expert guidance and mentorship when they need it most’.
 
‘Fellow support has been identified as a critical area of expansion for the RACGP to assist members during time away from practice, when transitioning back from non-clinical roles or clinical work outside general practice, and when dealing with regulatory bodies and conditions on registration,’ she told newsGP.
 
For Dr Amirthanandan, she became an educator and supervisor for the service last year, providing support to Fellows who have had conditions placed on them by AHPRA.
 
She says it has involved ‘a number of different activities’ that a supervisor may be required to do.
 
‘You might be asked to do a couple of hours of education on a particular topic with the Fellow,’ Dr Amirthanandan told newsGP.
 
‘Or it might be that you’re conducting an audit of their clinical practice, so you would be reviewing their clinical notes every few months and providing feedback on their notes.
 
‘It might be that you’re required to be actually supervising them within the context of practice, and some form of assessment on their performance is needed.’
 
The Fellow Support Service relies on GPs nationwide to become supervisors, a role done on an ad-hoc basis, with payment being a private arrangement between the supervisor and Fellow.
 
AHPRA also requires that supervisors be registered as a GP and have no conditions on their medical registration.
 
The role can be done remotely, in instances when a Fellow needing support cannot be seen in person.
 
Dr Amirthanandan said there is also the opportunity to provide mentorship.
 
‘It’s dependent on what you, as the GP supervisor, are able to commit to, or what you feel comfortable doing in terms of your own experience,’ she said.
 
Dr Amirthanandan says the Fellow Support Service offers ‘a really good opportunity to support our colleagues’.
 
‘It’s an important part of our role as GPs to provide that mentorship and support, and to ensure that there is a community of GPs where we’re maintaining a standard of practice,’ she said.
 
‘Appropriate clinical practice and best practice is very important. And most importantly, looking after the safety of our patients is really, really key, and this filters into that.
 
‘That was the main drawcard for me; assisting colleagues but also maintaining that best practice as a community.’
 
For more information, email fellowsupport@racgp.org.au. GP supervisors interested in contributing to the Fellow Support Service can register their details online.
 
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clinical practice educator Fellow Fellowship mentor supervisor support service