Dr Elinor Gunning, Course Lead for the Year 6 GPSA.

Dear tutors new and old,

At the start of the new academic year, I’d like to offer a warm welcome to all our new tutors and welcome back to those who are continuing their hard work with us. The GPSA is lucky enough to work with valued tutors from all over the UK, and we thank you all for your hard work and enthusiasm teaching with us. The Year 6 GPSA course continues to be a success, with excellent feedback from students and tutors, and will be continuing largely unchanged this year. The course continues to be a true assistantship, where our students can work alongside you in practice. Most of their time should still be spent seeing patients in their own rooms in parallel with you, so that they can refine their diagnostic and communication skills in order to be effective FY1s when they graduate next summer. I understand the tremendous effort our tutors put into making the GPSA attachment so valuable, and our course guide is filled with tips and tricks to help you efficiently orientate and guide the students during the attachment. In particular, we also offer advice on teaching when time is short and how your student can work with you to enhance patient care and the service that you provide. I would love to hear your feedback regarding how we as a department could better support you on the GPSA in order to refine the course further, and will be in touch with a survey over summer regarding this. As always, if you have any questions about the GPSA or your student at any stage then do not hesitate to contact me.

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