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 Trainers, George Boulos and Anna Magnusson, 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 13,100 with a good range of all social classes in this Reading suburb location.
We have the facility of a Terminal Care unit at 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 permanent team of doctors in the Practice 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, good wine and food, VSO & flying, not forgetting special associations with links to St. Mary's Hospital (Imperial College).
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. He is actively engaged in the Registrar's programme during the year on the varied aspects of practice management.
The Trainers
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
The appointment of Anna Magnusson as the Second Trainer at the Practice has secured the continuation of Tilehurst Surgery’s training for years to come, when George moves on to more areas of academia. Anna has a diploma in education with distinction and her submissions have been hailed in the Oxford Deanery as the models of perfection. She is a Bart's graduate.
By the year 2006 the Practice has 'graduated' 17 Registrars.
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 never more than once a week. There are 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 it’s 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 office as the Registrar at Tilehurst Surgery:- You have a state of the art multimedia communication setup in a totally paperless Practice, so familiarity with IT is essential.