The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) recognises the critically important role that many GPs play in the education of medical students through teaching, training, assessment and supervision in GP practices. This work is typically done through, and in affiliation with, Australian medical schools.

The RACGP is able to recognise this work and provide credit towards CPD for GPs who fulfil these roles to the satisfaction of their medical school. The RACGP is adopting the same approach with all GP supervisors of GP registrars, and with other medical educators in a variety of settings.

For GPs supervising medical students, the RACGP will recognise a maximum of 30 hours CPD (capped) out of the required 50 hours each year, and with this allocated across both educational activities (15 hours, capped) and reviewing performance (15 hours, capped).

There is no allocation for the measuring outcomes component of annual CPD through the work as a medical educator in this setting. This approach encourages GPs to pursue further CPD each year in support of their clinical work and any other roles.

For clarity, these hours are maximum caps. Each medical school has its own medical degree, and the role/s that GPs play in each school varies, and is varied across each year of the degree. The RACGP encourages schools to use the administrative data they already collect (GP, number of students, time spent etc.) and work with the CPD team in the RACGP on streamlined ways to record the hours. In this way, busy GPs do not need to log the hours themselves and the schools can position this administrative support as a useful value-add.

It is not necessarily the case that every hour a GP has with a medical student counts as CPD. For example, the GP may be consulting for most of that time and may spend only a few minutes interacting with the student. Conversely, at times the GP may be formally teaching one or more medical students. Medical schools are expected to exercise judgement, in partnership with individual GPs, to allocate hours to GPs according to what is required of them and when the work is completed successfully. 

Some schools may wish to extend this arrangement, for example by encouraging GPs and students to work on an audit project or any quality improvement activity as part of the course. For example, GP medical educators and/or supervisors may engage in measuring outcomes activity/ies such as, using feedback from the medical students and/or their peers to identify areas for improvement and implementing them. This would then count as measuring outcomes CPD hours for the GP. In some cases, if GPs are required to attend workshops in preparation for their role, relevant CPD hours may also be allocated.

The RACGP CPD Home welcomes universities to contact us on cpd.national@racgp.org.au to discuss an arrangement where we can assist to facilitate this process for our members.