Part Time Registrar Guide (EDU_GUD_26) - Education at BME

PART-TIME / FULL-TIME REGISTRAR FAQ
1. Full-Time Work Versus Full-Time Training – What is the Difference?
Beyond Medical education requires all practices to employ the minimum terms and conditions, as
set out on the GPRA website, http://www.gpra.org.au/sites/default/files/NMTC_2013.pdf .
Full-time employment is 38 hours per week; this time includes all your consultations,
admin time, teaching time and workshops. A registrar must be at the clinic for 38 hours
per week to be eligible for the full-time minimum salary.
Full-time training with BME also requires a registrar to be employed for 38 hours per
week. This must include a minimum of 27 consulting hours per week. That leaves 11
hours for all the other activities e.g. your teaching time, Beyond Medical Education
workshop time and administration time. Full-time training is 38 hours per week over at
least 4 days. Full-time training satisfies the RACGP, ACRRM and AGPT requirements
for progression through the training program.
2. What Constitutes a Full-Time Week?
This is taken from section 5 of the NMTC (National Minimum terms and conditions):
5.1 Ordinary Hours
5.1.1 The ordinary hours of the registrar are calculated as the time between commencing and
finishing work each day. Ordinary hours do not include on-call time and meal breaks. Ordinary
hours shall be worked in periods of not less than 3 hours and no greater than 12 hours on any one
day. Ordinary hours for payment purposes are between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday and 8am
and 1pm on Saturday. The ordinary hours will be agreed prior to the commencement of the term.
Ordinary hours include:
a. normal general practice activities such as:
Scheduled consulting time (whether seeing patients or not);
Home, hospital and nursing home visits including travel time; and
Administrative time (e.g. writing notes, telephone calls, reports).
b. Practice based teaching time; and
c. Educational release time.
So a usual 38 hour week in GPT1 is made up of a minimum of:
27 hours consulting time;
1 hour face to face teaching;
2 hours other teaching or self-directed learning; and
½ hour admin time per session (approx. 8 hours per week).
Full-time working and training hours are a 38 hour working week, including all your consultations,
administration time, teaching time and workshops (e.g. you have to be at work for 38 hours of the
week). Full-time teaching and working equate to the salary as outlined in the National Minimum
Terms & Conditions.
3. What is Part-Time?
A registrar is classified as part-time if they work less than 38 hours per week;
The minimum allowable part-time training is working at the clinic for at least 10.5 hours
per week. Note: there must be at least 9 hours of direct patient contact (consulting)
during the 10.5 hours; and
Must be completed over at least 2 days per week.
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PART-TIME / FULL-TIME REGISTRAR FAQ
4. How do you Manage Teaching for a Part-Time Registrar?
For part-time GP registrars, the recommended weekly teaching arrangements may differ, and
should be negotiated between the GP registrar, GP Trainer and Beyond Medical Education. As a
general rule we would expect the following for part-time registrars working 0.5 FTE.
Level
Face to Face Teaching per week
Additional Protected Teaching
Time per week
GPT1 30 minutes 1 hour
GPT2 30 minutes 30 minutes per fortnight
For part-time placements, the minimum protected time for face to face teaching time must not be
less than 30 minutes per week.
5. What are the Options in Regard to a Part-Time Registrar Attending Workshops?
Attendance at workshops is a compulsory component of the BME training program. The practice
agreement stipulates that the GP registrars are paid by the practices for the time they attend the
workshops. Part-time registrars should discuss their attendance plan with their supervisor and
ensure the practice agrees to their proposal to meet the workshop attendance training requirement.
This plan should then be communicated to the registrars Regional Program Coordinator (RPC) and
Local Medical Educator (LME) for approval.
Part-time registrars are entitled to payment for attendance at workshops on a pro-rata
basis;
All registrars whether full or part-time must attend the orientation workshop at the
commencement of their GPT 1 term;
GP registrars in GPT1 terms are required to attend 4 workshops, so a 0.5 registrar
would be entitled to attend 2 workshops upon negotiation with Beyond Medical
Education and the registrars practice;
GP registrars in GPT2 terms are required to attend 3 workshops, so a 0.5 registrar
would be entitled to attend up to 2 workshops upon negotiation with Beyond Medical
Education and the registrars practice; and
GP registrars who wish to attend all 7 workshops in one training year are able to do so
IF THEY ARE COMPLETING GPT 1 and GPT 2 TERMS AT THE SAME PRACTICE
but this must be negotiated well in advance with Beyond Medical Education and the
practice.
6. What Happens When a Registrar Attends a Workshop on their Scheduled Day Off?
If a registrar is required to attend a workshop on a session or a day which is scheduled time off for
the registrar then there are 2 options for payment of the registrar:
The registrar is entitled to time off in lieu for workshop attendance; and
The registrar is paid for their workshop attendance and required to work their normal
sessions.
This is for negotiation between the practice and the registrar. BME suggests this should be
included as part of the terms and conditions of their employment contract.
7. What is Acceleration of Part-Time Training?
As a general principle, the RACGP believes that part-time general practice experience is valuable.
They consider that the value of part-time general practice experience is greater than the proportion
based only on time worked would indicate. The RACGP censors have approved a procedure for
„accelerating‟ time spent in part-time training for the purpose of meeting the time requirements of
the AGPT. For information on how to accelerate your part-time training, please see the RACGP
Acceleration of part-time training policy. Please note that part-time registrars considering applying
for acceleration of training should notify Beyond Medical Education no less than eight weeks prior
to the end of each semester.
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PART-TIME / FULL-TIME REGISTRAR FAQ
8. Some Common Scenarios which Arise When a Registrar Works Part-Time at a Clinic:
Scenario 1
Registrar A works 9-5 Monday to Thursday and is booked with patients from 9-12noon and 2-5pm.
He has 4 regular workshops, 3 of which fall on a Thursday and Friday during the term. As he is
GPT1, he has many spare appointments and no admin time is booked out, as he can do that in his
free appointments. He has scheduled 1 hour face to face teaching, but the other 2 hours are done
in his spare time at home.
Advice from Beyond Medical Education:
Registrar A is working a 32 hour week, but this needs to be adjusted for the workshops which
occur on his usual day off. He can either be paid for his attendance, (e.g. he will be full-time in a
workshop week) or take another day of the week off in lieu for the day he goes to the workshop on
his “day off”. Self-directed learning is best “blanked out” of the schedule, but while there are 2
hours free in his schedule to pursue his self-directed learning, he could choose to not have a
specified time allocated.
If his schedule becomes fully booked, he needs to “blank out” 2 hours of his schedule to allocate to
self-directed learning. The standards mandate that the supervisor must be available for
consultation during these 2 hours, so it can‟t be done at home.
Scenario 2
Registrar B is in GPT1 works Monday and Tuesday 9-5. She is attending her workshops this term.
She has 1 hour teaching per fortnight and she does her self-directed learning at home, as it is
more convenient.
Advice from Beyond Medical Education:
Registrar B‟s hours are worked out as 17 hours per week. This is made up of 2 days of 8 hours,
plus 1 hour per week self-directed learning. In the week that she has a workshop her hours
increase to 33 hours, this is made up by adding 2 x 8 hour days of workshop attendance. Her selfdirecting
learning must be allocated into her working week, she cannot complete these hours at
home as the supervisor should be available during the self-directed learning time.
Beyond Medical Education Revision 1.0 – Date: 03/05/2013 Page 3 of 3
EDU-GUD-26
Once printed, this is an ‘Uncontrolled Document’