Staff from the Rural Clinical School have been broadening their understanding of general practice.
Staff from the Rural Clinical School have been broadening their understanding of general practice at this year's GP18 held on the Gold Coast.
Academic Registrar, Dr Jessie Andrewartha has provided a reflection of the experience:
The annual RACGP conference, GP18, was held on the Gold Coast between 10 - 13 October and attracted over 2000 delegates. This year’s theme was general practice: the centre of health in Australia, with clinical sessions focusing on the following areas: healthy GP, healthy patient, healthy community, healthy rural, healthy future, and healthy nation. The presentations varied from short 15-minute snapshots of research to 90-minute clinical skills updates and 60-minute group discussion and forums. There was also ample opportunity to mingle in the exhibition area, catch up with colleagues, review poster presentations, and engage with service providers in reviewing new medical equipment.
Highlights:
- The opening plenary session delivered by two-person team Future Crunch allowed us a glimpse into the rapidly evolving world of medical artificial intelligence technology. The snapshot of medical breakthroughs we have achieved in just the last 40 days was eye-opening and was a great way to feel energised about the future of medicine.
- Listening to the two fantastic presentations that came out of the Rural Clinical School in Burnie and were delivered at a major national conference. Sarvin Rhandawa presented her research on GP registrar bullying and sexual harassment to a full audience and generated some great discussion. Lynn Hemmings presented on the process of implementing the rural GP Intern program in Tasmania, and this attracted keen interest amongst delegates from other states.
- A presentation for rural GPs regarding emergency management of eye and dental dilemmas was particularly useful for us working on the North-West Coast. The presenters were dynamic and engaging and full of useful tips and practical knowledge.
- Smoking cessation is a particular passion, the health benefits are far-reaching for the individual and the community, so it was fantastic to spend an hour session discussing real-life cases with addiction specialists.
Learning points:
- We gauged the success of presentations based on how they would change our practice, and there were certainly many instances of this throughout the three days.
- A clinical update on spirometry cases and respiratory medicine was particularly useful and attracted a big audience.
- One of the most interesting and applicable poster presentations was looking at a comparison of medical student GP patient encounters across rural and metropolitan sites. It confirmed my experience of having a valuable introduction to GP at a rural location compared to a metropolitan location. Students in rural areas were actively involved in consults 45.78% of the time, compared to 14% for their metropolitan colleagues.
Future directions:
Overall the conference was an extremely valuable educational experience for the academic registrars. It was wonderful to look around the rooms and see so many motivated and inspired delegates. There was certainly an undercurrent of activism and advocacy for cthe ommunity through engagement with general practice research, our role as teachers of both patients and future medical professionals, and also cementing a solid base for funding for primary care. The future certainly looks bright for general practice!
