A call for help list for Australian general practice registrars

The 3 attached documents are: the research paper published in the Australian Journal of General Practice, and the 'call for help' list in .doc and .pdf formats.

Australian general practice registrars are expected to only manage patients they are competent to manage. This list sets out situations where a registrar should call their supervisor for help. These include clinical situations, new or challenging consultations, professional and legal consultations, and situations that indicate registrar uncertainty.

This list should be reviewed early in each training term, potentially allowing removal of items from the list. This should be done cautiously, as hospital or prior clinical experience in a specific area may not translate to competence in a general practice environment. Where a practice has a special interest or serves a particular patient demographic, items may need to be added to the list.

The registrar should call their supervisor for items on the list until the supervisor determines that this is no longer necessary. This will be either through supervision of registrar clinical work, or by the issue being satisfactorily covered during an in-practice teaching session. It is likely that many items will remain on the list throughout the term, particularly the uncertainty flags and those that relate to situations that are high risk for all doctors.