Become a GP educator in the East of England
As a GP, you have the opportunity to shape our future primary care workforce. Becoming an educator allows you to guide and equip aspiring GPs and primary care healthcare professionals with the skills and confidence to shape the future of primary care.
GP educators in the East of England are also known as clinical supervisor - Tier 2b educators and educational supervisor - Tier 3 educators.
If you are a multiprofessional primary care clinician and want to know more about becoming an educator, please contact your local Training Hub for details of local opportunities.
Why become a GP educator?
As healthcare transforms to bring care closer to communities, your expertise is essential in preparing the next generation of healthcare professionals for this evolving landscape. Step into this rewarding training role and leave a lasting impact on both your trainees and the care they provide.
Education offers GPs a rewarding way to diversify your career while maintaining clinical practice. It keeps your work varied and intellectually stimulating, allowing you to apply your knowledge and skills in different ways.
With you leading the way, multidisciplinary teams can realise their potential too. You'll be part of the significant firsts and milestones in someone else's learning journey whilst advancing your own career and actively participating in the transformation that will improve patient care.
Becoming a GP educator has enhanced Dr Talha Sami’s clinical practice:
"It has kept me up to date with guidelines and having to check latest pathways," he explains. “The role has strengthened my knowledge and kept me up to date with current with medical developments. My practice has successfully integrated educational activities by creating dedicated administrative time for me to review resident doctors' portfolios and provide structured supervision during training sessions.”
The benefits for you as an educator
Your role as a primary care educator directly contributes to delivering better, more accessible healthcare in local communities. You'll help prepare professionals who are equipped to meet the evolving needs of our growing and ageing population, strengthening the care provided closer to where people live.
Becoming a GP educator brings personal and professional rewards:
- the satisfaction of helping GP registrars develop into fully qualified GPs
- excellent peer support from local trainers' groups and networks
- the opportunity to develop as an educator and enhance your own skills
You can apply to become a GP educator in the East of England, read the training pathway and read our latest FAQs to find out more about the role.
Hear from GP educators
Interested in becoming a GP educator but want to know more about how it works in practice? Read case studies from GP educators across England to discover the benefits for you, your service, and your patients, and to see where the role could take your career.
Local GP educators case studies
Although I have been practicing as a GP for a good few years, I only qualified as a GP trainer in 2017. The road to accreditation is varied and I started out along the academic route at Anglia Ruskin University with their MACE course before switching to the more vocational conversion course run by the deanery.
Wherever I have worked there has been a strong teaching ethos where experience filters through and this supports everyone all the way through to the trainee.
There are many benefits personally and from a practice perspective regarding training. Just like watchers! When someone is watching you, cannot get stuck in your ways, your guidelines.
Training future GP’s helps strengthen the links down the generations and can help keep us younger at heart.
I hope, dealing with the psychology of people, the art of medicine, there is much to impart that cannot be learnt from a book – and is what can make the job most rewarding.
When it works well, there is symbiosis.
Being involved in GP education has always been part of my working life as a GP. As a GP trainer, it was always such a privilege to help my fellow doctors develop as a GP’s – to see the light in their eyes when something clicked into place, and to watch them develop and achieve their aim to qualify as a GP. On the plus side for me as well, their knowledge and enthusiasm helped me to keep up to date – I learnt as much from them as they might have done from me. And it certainly helped to balance out the pressures of clinical work too whilst keeping me sane!
Having started as a GP trainer, I then became a training programme director (TPD) in Bury St Edmunds, followed by being the associate dean (AD) for Suffolk and Bedfordshire with lead responsibility for the assessment process and then followed by becoming the head of school for general practice. I have greatly enjoyed all these roles and feel very privileged to be a part of the training community in the East of England.
I teach GP specialist registrars, at all stages of training, in the art of out of hours general practice, as an out of hours clinical supervisor. There is no need to be a trainer or associate trainer to be approved in this role by the deanery. There is no requirement upon me to complete or review any e-portfolio entries, although I can assess face-to-face and audio consultations (using consultation observation tools) and examination skills (clinical examination and procedural skills) if I wish.
This role accords me the privilege of observing many different doctors consult. The breadth of the registrars’ previously acquired skills gives me insight into a huge resource of up-to-date knowledge that I can incorporate into my own practice, after critically appraising the trainee’s reference sources. I encourage the registrars to comment upon my own practice too, so that the educational process is two-way. Each registrar has different needs, and the students are constantly facing new challenges during OHH sessions, which I feel keeps my teaching fresh. I have a lot of continuity with each registrar, if he/she chooses, which gives me the reward of watching their confidence and proficiency grow over time. It’s a fun and interesting way to teach and learn.
I became involved with GP education son after I qualified as a GP and both roles have provided me with enormous satisfaction during my professional career.
Being an educator has always kept me on my toes and enabled me to keep my clinical knowledge up to date. However, the real pleasure comes from helping trainees develop and progress to become GP’s and encouraging them to become educators. The road to success is not always a straightforward one and is a privilege to be able to provide guidance and support to trainee’s and our future colleagues.
I have always enjoyed educating, and becoming an associate trainer (AT) was a great way of formalising it. I was able to start the process in my ST3 year. Following completion and getting my approval, one year post CCT I was able to be a clinical supervisor for a trainee in my practice, supervise out of hours trainees and regularly help trainees with CSA practice at the Bedford VTS scheme.
Becoming an AT is always a benefit to a training practice. In turn it also keeps me up to date. I can advise and facilitate trainees in a process I was part of not very long ago, which can be extremely beneficial for them, and rewarding for myself.
It certainly the great way to start a career in medical education.
I have been a trainer in a semi-rural Suffolk practice for 25 years. In that time, I have helped train over 30 GP’s, many of whom still work locally.
A major benefit to training has been 3 ex-trainees who have joined our practice to replace retiring partners – our practice has a full complement of GPs. Training can be challenging but is also incredibly rewarding. I have found it particularly satisfying when helping trainees who are in difficulty, for whatever reason, and when they succeed and obtain their CCT they are extremely grateful.
More recently I have taken training to another level with a steep learning curve. I have received fantastic support from my TPD colleague, local administrator and the deanery which has made this role enjoyable.
Being a TPD has utilised many of the skills I had previously developed as a trainer and has involved much greater interaction with the trainees and greater involvement with their progression through training.
Altogether being a trainer and TPD has been a hugely important part of my career in general practice and one which I have found to be both good fun and fulfilling. I would thoroughly recommend it.