A special commendation should go to Harriet Davidson and Frances Dixon, two final year students whose abstract was selected amongst a competitive field of primary care academics, to present at this year’s SAPC meeting held at Madingley Hall in Cambridge. They expertly and confidently presented the findings of an audit they conducted as part of their General Practice Student Assistantship coursework, and their responses to tricky questions from the audience was particularly impressive!
The audit analysed the use of chaperones for intimate examinations in primary care, an important topic for which GMC guidance was published in April 2013. As part of the audit they not only conducted a retrospective analysis of GP consultations, but also carried out a prospective survey of 91 patients to find out their views on being offered chaperones. They found that over two thirds of patients felt that chaperones should be offered but that less than a third would actually ask for one, concluding that patients want chaperones more than doctors think they do, and that we should be trying to overcome possible obstacles and offering chaperones as much as possible.
Following on from their success at Madingley, they also recently recorded a video of their presentation which will be shown at the Annual Teachers Conference for Primary Care Teachers held in June at Imperial College.
They deserve a special mention for this work given that they are currently in the midst of their finals, and we wish them both every future success!
Dr Joanne Harris MRCP MRCGP MA (Med Ed)
General Practitioner
Director of Curriculum and Assessment
Deputy Director of Primary Care Education
Read Final Year students present at Society of Academic Primary Care in full
Madeleine Openshaw, a 5th year student at the Imperial College School of Medicine won the Student Presenter prize at the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC), London and South East Regional conference in January 2015.