Education & Training
Within Scotland five of the universities provide the
opportunity to study medicine. The undergraduate training
programmes are based on the recommendations from the General
Medical Council.
The following links will give guidance to those that wish to
pursue a career in medicine:
Postgraduate Training for General
Practice
All post-graduate training programmes are
currently under review and a new national body is being
established. This body will be the Postgraduate Medical Education Training
Board (PMETB) and will work with each local Deanery to ensure
high quality training and the maintenance of nationally agreed
standards.
General Practice is recognised as a specialty in its own right
and RCGP Scotland has worked with PMETB to help ensure that a high
standard of training continues. RCGP Scotland will continue to
contribute to postgraduate training and monitor standards by
working within the Joint Committee on Postgraduate Training for
General Practice, by carrying out Joint Hospital Visiting and
through the MRCGP examination, up until 30th September 2005. From
this date onwards, the PMETB will assume responsibility for quality
assurance for postgraduate medical education and training in the
UK.
Joint
Hospital Visiting
Joint Hospital Visiting has been successfully carried out in
Scotland by RCGP Scotland for the past nine years, during which
time RCGP Scotland has achieved a high level of success and has
continued to ensure that the standards of GP training and education
remain at a high level.
On the 30th September 2005 the
Postgraduate Medical Education Training
Board (PMETB) took over Hospital Visiting and the
responsibilities previously undertaken by RCGP Scotland, its GP
Visitors and the Scottish Hospital Recognition Committee (SHRC).
PMETB will work with the Deaneries to ensure that a high standard
of GP training continues. PMETB will be responsible for appointing
and training GP Visitors, receiving inspection visit reports, and
making recommendations for approval (or withdrawal) for all SHO
posts in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom.
PMETB Information
The PMETB was established by the General and Special Medical
Practice (Education and Qualifications) Order, approved by
Parliament on 4 April 2003 to develop a single, unifying framework
for postgraduate medical education (PGME) and training across the
UK. The Board is accountable to Parliament and will act
independently of government as the UK competent authority. PMETB
will take up its full statutory powers on September 30th 2005. All
PMETB visits will include a lay person and all visiting panel
reports will be submitted to the PMETB Board for approval and be
available in the public domain.
The PMETB has now launched a major consultation on proposals
for an integrated system of quality assurance for postgraduate
medical education and training in the UK.
These proposals bring together the current hospital visiting
carried out by the medical Royal Colleges and the quality assurance
of Deaneries conducted by the Joint Committee on Postgraduate
Training for General Practitioners (JCPTGP).
At the centre of the proposals is the creation of a UK-wide
data collection system. This will collate views and information on
an annual basis from trainees, supervisors and training
providers.
These surveys will be used to provide a comprehensive picture
of postgraduate medical education and to identify problems.
Underpinning the data collection system will be a system of
visits to check whether the written information matches experience
on the ground. All Deaneries will be visited once every five years
as part of a rolling programme and other 'triggered' visits can be
initiated if there is an immediate problem which has to be
addressed quickly.