The Trainee Journey & How MRCGP Fits In

 

 

 

 

When To Do the Various Bits of Work Place Based Assessments

 

* You need to bear in mind which assessments need to be completed in each post and organise them

* You decide when these assessments take place

* Pace yourself; your trainer will not appreciate it if you try and fit all the assessments into the last week of your post

* Give your trainer notice (“Can we do a CBD next week?”)

 

 

For details of what you need to do at what ST stage, please click on this link: How many assessments and when? (summary of what to do at what ST stage)

 

 

All 6 CBDs and 6 COTs need to be completed 2 months before the end of your final ST3 post (ie the 34th month, if you count the first month in ST1 as the 1st month), BUT you should be aiming to do lots more. 6 is just a MINIMUM number.

 

 

 

Guidance

 

* Preparation is either necessary or strongly advised

 

* Case selection is very important, as different cases will allow demonstration of different competences, and you need to cover all of them to complete WPBA

 

* There is a prescribed time for each assessment, which is followed by feedback and completion of the forms in your ePortfolio

 

 

 

Other Notes

KEY POINT ONE: responsibility

 

It is the responsiblity of the trainee to ensure that they complete the appropriate assessments and build up a record of their training and evidence of competence AT THE APPROPRIATE TIMES through the e-portfolio. It will be you who tells your trainer/supervisor when you are ready to do a specific type of assessment (not the other way around).

 

KEY POINT TWO: 'needs further development'

Please do not see 'needs further development' as a failure. We expect you to have quite a few 'needs further development' especially if you are in ST1 or ST2. If you had all "competent" or "excellent" in ST1 or ST2, we'd be worried - how can you have no learning needs at such an early stage in your training.

 

KEY POINT THREE: Hospital Consultants

Some of your hospital colleagues may not be that familiar with what they are doing in the assessments. Whilst they are being trained up, we would urge you to get a good understanding of how the assessments work and what each domain or competency means so that you are empowered to help your consultant. In this way, we are sure that your hospital colleagues will get the hang of them in no time and really help you to get the best out of them. So, please help them.

 

 

* Throughout the training mini-CEX and COT assessments will be used interchangeably. The former being adopted in the secondary care setting, the latter in primary care.

 

* DOPS assessment will only need to be carried out until the mandatory practical skills have been assessed as satisfactory.

 

* Patient satisfaction will only be assessed in the primary care setting.

 

* Multi-source feedback will involve clinical raters only when in secondary care and both clinical and non-clinical raters when in primary care.