Structure

Structure

The structure of the second edition of the Profile is set out in a way that meets the varied needs of users of the Profile. The Profile is structured around the five roles of a specialist general practitioner’s work (Communicator, Clinician, Health advocate and leader, Professional, and Scientist, educator, and researcher) and across the four milestones of general practice training which are represented by the levels of supervision in training (Entry, Foundation, Consolidation, Fellowship).

The Profile moves from the five broad roles of a general practitioner (GP) to detailed competencies for that role at each of the four different milestones. In practice, a specialist GP integrates the roles and capabilities seamlessly, however, the Profile structure provides an accessible way of describing the complexity of the development of a specialist GP. The structure is:

• Roles – Five roles of a specialist GP
• Capabilities – 20 high-level abilities required for the complex role of a specialist GP
• Themes – A topic area that is part of a capability
• Competency – A discrete statement about what can be done
• Milestones – Four descriptors of the level of general practice training based on level of supervision. 

This can be conceptually represented in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – the structure of the RACGP Progressive capability profile of the specialist general practitioner (2nd edition)