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Table 7 Data display of verbatim statements in theme and sub-themes ‘Challenges to the practice’

From: Benefits and challenges of multi-level learner rural general practices – an interview study with learners, staff and patients

Subtheme

Learners

Staff

Patient

Administration

I suppose there’s a lot of organisation that needs to happen. They’ve got the practice manager here who works really hard organizing accommodation and paperwork, and I guess the interns where you rotate through here every ten weeks; so, you know, every ten weeks you’ve got someone turning up who’s new, doesn’t know where anything is, and you have to start all over again. (Female intern#1 at P2)

There’s, each level of learner has its own bureaucratic requirements, bureaucratic/ legitimate educational requirements too, you know, feedback, reports, mid term assessments, you know, teaching and consultation records, some of which can be done at the admin level but not all of it can. (Male supervisor#2 at P1)

 

Learner turnover

Supervisors like to teach and they must like to share, maybe because they like to see people grow…but on the other hand…they don’t get to set up the relationships to last for a long time. (Female intern#1 at P3)

One of the disadvantages is, when you do get a fantastic intern…they’re only here for ten weeks and not only would we like them to stay, they’d love to stay as well. (Practice manager#1 at P3). It is problematic because what happens is that someone comes into the community, we bend over backwards to make them feel welcome and they join in to more or less an extent depending on their personality, and then they leave after six months or a year. (Female practice manager#1 at P1)

 

Infrastructure

 

Well, it puts a strain on the infrastructure. Each learner in a consulting room is going to see less patients using that consulting space than a fully experienced GP, so, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of seeing patients, you’d do better without having a medical student there and finding a full time doctor. (Male supervisor#2 at P1)

 

Supervisor workload

I think the challenge has got to be for the supervisor to keep stretching the learners and to know what they should know and to pitch their questions. So I think it’s important. I don’t think the challenge is so much for the learners. I think it must be more for the supervisor… So I think that’s a bigger challenge because amongst themselves they know what they can do and stretch each other all the time, (Female intern#2 at P3)

You have to work through the issues and basically be there for the each group of learner. (Male supervisor#1 at P2)