Dear NELG Member,
Dear
They are groups of practitioners who meet regularly to address their shared professional development needs. Broadly this means meeting for educational purposes and also for peer support.
1. An interactive learning style : learning by discussion rather than just reading or listening.
2. Completely GP focused as the topics are chosen by GPs.
3. Active rather than passive- so better chances of retention.
4. Discussion with peers places new guidelines and research in context of their expected impact on your day to day practice.
5. Opportunities to share different methods of learning, website, resources etc.
6. Mutual professional support
7. Additional structure and motivation to support personally driven learning
8. A good way to learn about the more challenging topics e.g. ethics, policy, etc.
9. Efficiency: sharing out topics and journals and bringing back keys points mean you are benefitting from collective efforts of the group.
If you want to find out more you can read more about groups in the Guide I have written which is available though the link below.
There are a number of successful groups operating locally and a growing experience of models which are successful.
Some tips are:
1. To avoid spending lots of time coordinating diaries set a fixed monthly date (e.g. second Monday of month)
2. Group size- 8-12 is ideal- as this way there are always enough for a meeting even when some are on holiday or have other commitments.
3. At first meeting agree general aims and ways of working (groundrules) and how each person will contribute.
4. Most meetings rotate round members’ houses and members take it in turn to prepare topics.
5. Set aside one meeting a year at least to do some reviewing and planning for the year (agreeing venues, and presenters) and discussing what’s going well and what isn’t.
6. Keep track of your meetings for your appraisal.
7. For more read the guide on the NELG education page.
Periodically, I in my GP tutor role, facilitate networking for the purpose of creating or extending SDLGs.
If you email me the following information I will be back in touch with a list of people who have also replied to this email and then you can contact each other to meet up and creates your groups.
PLEASE EMAIL ME:
1. Name
2. Working status (locum/salaried etc)
3. Area where you live
4. Email
5. mobile
6. What you hope to get out of the group
7. What time of day/ days of week you would hope to meet
8. How often you would like to meet
[please copy and paste the above into your reponse and fill in under each heading INCLUDING YOUR EMAIL] This will then be copied and pasted exactly as written into a shared document to send round.