TILEHURST SURGERY PARTNERSHIP

PROFILE FOR PROSPECTIVE REGISTRARS  

Tilehurst Surgery is a modern purpose-built single-site medical centre erected in 1987 and has been a long established training practice for Registrars, Medical Students and Health Care Professionals. We are an integral Teaching Practice within the Oxford Region Vocational Training Scheme.

The Registrar is integrated as a member of the Primary Care Team alongside the Partners on equal basis of respect and workload in this traditionally busy Practice. Information Technology features prominently in his/her training from the very early stages of the attachment.

The teaching is totally "protected" and directed by the Trainer, George Boulos, and shared by all the Partners, Practice Manager and Primary Care Team.

The patients are "common" to all Doctors, i.e. no individual lists and this includes the Registrar which means that appointments are offered equally to all patients amongst all the Doctors ensuring a good case mix for the Registrar rather than the mere "spill over" cases. The Practice population is some 12,500 with a good range of all social classes in this Reading suburb location.

We have the facility of a Cottage Hospital and Terminal Care unit at Dellwood and Duchess of Kent nearby. Our local Hospitals are staffed by a significant proportion of GP Registrars in various rotations, hence the long established cordial association. We are actively represented on our local Primary Care Group.

The six full time equivalent partners, (including two part time female partners) take pride in their ability to develop their own medical specialities within the Practice and to happily share them with the Registrar. They also have a varied and interesting range of non medical interests spanning antique clocks, computers, motorbikes, gardening and good wine and food, not forgetting special associations with links to St. Mary's Hospital, the Welsh valleys and German pastures.

Friends of Tilehurst Surgery

The Friends are a voluntary group of patients of the surgery who meet regularly and aim to support patients, doctors and staff. They have undertaken to produce the quarterly surgery newsletter which seeks patient views, provides health advice from the clinical team and informs patients of changes within the Practice. Contributions to the newsletter from the Registrar are welcomed.

Practice Staff

The Practice is fortunate to have a team of attached staff who are actively involved in the training of students within their own disciplines. The Registrar has introductory sessions with all members of the attached team.

The ancillary staff are primarily involved in the induction period but offer the Registrar support throughout the training year. Our Practice Manager is traditionally a member of the Oxford Region Assessment Team for Postgraduate Training. She is actively engaged in the Registrar's programme during the year on the varied aspects of practice management.

The Trainer

George Boulos is a St. Mary's graduate and a staunch supporter of his Medical School. He is credited in the Training Group with having a systematic, well organised training log which perpetuates itself throughout the training year to the eventual completion of the syllabus and satisfaction of the summative assessment and MRCGP requirements. His main pride is in the prestigious and respectable positions all his previous Trainees have attained. In keeping with his St. Mary's traditions he expects his Registrars to become actively involved in the teaching of Medical Students from St. Mary's on a regular basis. In the event of his absence, holiday, or being run over by a bus, Chris Howlett would gallantly step in as his Deputy Trainer.

The Registrar's rota ensures adequate time for training and "away days". Duty rotas are steadfastly scrutinised to ensure no extra service commitments are added to his or her workload. The on-call is a mix between co-operative duties and own cover, but never more than once a week. Similarly, on-call weekends total 8½ per year with NO Bank Holiday duties. It goes without saying that the Registrar will always have 100% Partner cover + 100% access to all partnership meetings and matters.

The Practice Leaflet, which contains much of the information on these web pages, is given to all new patients to give them a birds-eye view of the Practice and its members. Tilehurst Surgery strives to live up to the reputation of the caring Practice it is, and has been known, all its years in Tilehurst. We also celebrated our centenary in 1998. Obviously, we look forward to our Registrars enhancing this reputation. In common with other top teaching practices, Tilehurst Surgery is actively involved in multi-audit projects, MRC trials and comfortably achieves all Health Promotion targets. We have featured in BBC2 Newsnight during fundholding debates and lately made headline news and appearances in the World Media and on the Internet as the pioneering centre for the first human microchip implant in conjunction with Reading University’s Cybernetics Department. 

Finally a word about your own PC in your office as the Registrar at Tilehurst Surgery:- You have a state of the art multimedia PC with CD ROM facility to demonstrate clinical pictures to patients, play your own background music and, if you have time to spare, one or two games on screen!