Regarding John Launer's piece on embracing clinical supervision,1 may I make the following suggestions? They are based on my experience of facilitating the development of a monthly 2-hour ‘clinical peer review meeting’ held within our practice on a Friday morning between 8 and 10am, and attended by all partners not on leave and some practice and district nurses. Many practices have been running such meetings for years, under various different guises.
The agenda for such meetings should be wholly owned by the participants, and have no political drivers.
The educational content should be developed by and mainly delivered by the participants.
GPs should recognise the wealth of collective educational value they have within themselves. Once allowed to express it, even a small group of GPs has an abundance of hidden talents, skills and latent knowledge, and those deriving from areas beyond medicine should also be encouraged.
A multiplicity of styles of delivery should be welcomed, and no norm expected.
Departments of postgraduate GP education could help most by delivering funding for locum cover where possible.
REFERENCES
- 1.Launer J. Moving on from Balint: embracing clinical supervision. Br J Gen Pract. 2007;57(536):182–183. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]