The Health Service requires new health care professionals such as doctors and nurses to take over as others retire and to enable services to expand and improve. Existing staff also need to maintain and improve their skills. Training and education is therefore a very important function of the Health Service.

Overton Surgery is a GP training practice and supports doctors during their period of GP training. The GP Trainers responsible for training in the practice are Dr David Bartlett and Dr Jonathan Rial. GPs training with us may be registrars or Foundation Year doctors.

Registrars

Registrars are doctors who have worked in hospital for at least 3 years since qualification and are required to work for one year/18 months as a GP in a surgery in order to be fully qualified as a GP.

Foundation Year 2 Doctors

Foundation Year 2 Doctors have spent at least a year working in hospital after they qualified from medical school.

They spend a four-month period in general practice as well as gaining hospital experience before becoming fully registered as a doctor.

Medical Students

Both surgeries sometimes have medical students who are gaining experience of general practice as part of their university training.

They are not yet qualified doctors but work, under supervision, alongside a GP and may sit in during a surgery with the patient’s consent.

Sixth Form Students

When sixth form students are considering whether or not they want to study to become a doctor it is helpful if they can see how GPs and other doctors work. We provide this opportunity for a small number of local students by letting them see how the surgery works and by watching our doctors and nurses at work.

We have a signed agreement with each student to respect patient confidentiality and they can only observe a consultation with the agreement of the patient.

Trainee Nurses

We also help train other health care professionals. Trainee nurses are sometimes attached to the community nursing team and always work under the supervision of fully qualified nurses.