Using actors to simulate doctors in the continuing professional development of GP trainers and appraisers.

Simulation has radically changed medical training and is set to continue to do so in the future. The branch of simulation that sees actors playing a role in training and assessment is long-established and well-developed. Typically actors have been used to play the role of patient. This innovation in communication skills teaching sees actors playing doctors (specifically GP trainees or GP appraisees), to enhance the continuing professional development of established GP trainers and appraisers. By using actors, scenarios drawing on typical encounters can be played up or down using techniques which are familiar to hi-fidelity electronic simulation. This flexibility enables the 'challenge' of the encounter to be tailored to the needs of the participants in order to maximise their learning. Feedback from participants at the workshops was positive, noting that the approach is both challenging and revealing of their own practice. More research is needed to develop this approach further and explore it's relevance to other areas of GP training and CPD.

The formative impact of general practice appraisals: a post-appraisal questionnaire survey.

Since their national implementation in 2002, GP appraisals are being extensively applied. There is a positive link between appraisals and patient care in hospitals. There also appears to be no uniform model for appraisals, which has led to confusion between their 'stand-alone' role as a formative assessment tool and their contribution to summative revalidation. This is a case study into the formative element of appraisals as carried out at a primary care trust in Wessex. We offer an insight into the diversity of learning outcomes and developmental potential of the formative element of appraisals (excluding revalidation) attained through the analysis of emerging themes from responses to a purposely designed questionnaire aimed at appraisees (questions appear in the tables). To our knowledge this is one of the few research articles that deal with the formative educational element of GP appraisals.