Are you struggling to finish your consult in 12 minutes?
GP trainees commonly find themselves short of time in SCA Exam.
This is particularly more of an issue with high-challenge cases or those involving medical complexity. In this article, you will learn five tips to compress your consultation.
Learn to prime a case
Priming a case before the start of the consultation is vital. Use the three minutes reading time to plan and prepare your consultation. Use the information provided and anticipate the consultation. Write down key questions you shouldn’t miss to make a safe assessment. Consider relevant differential diagnosis and management plans.
Dissect your consultation
To effectively manage time, one needs to first identify the reasons for poor use of time. One of the best tools to dissect your consult is to record and analyse the causes of a consultation going over 12 minutes. The usual suspects are lack of structure, not being willing to commit to a diagnosis or excessive use of summary.
Don’t dwell on data gathering
Many GP trainees dwell in data gathering beyond 7-8 minutes due to a fear of missing important information. As a result, they don’t leave sufficient time to tackle clinical management. Trainees may have to rush and don’t discuss treatment plans, arrange follow-up or provide safety netting advice.
Structure your consultation
Without a structure, you might jump back and forth from clinical management to data gathering. Structuring your history-taking may save you time. Consider revisiting consultation models and use a crib sheet to organise your thoughts and plan before initiating the consultation. I go into more detail about the various consultation models in this post.
Use a timer
Keep track of time during your consultation. Get yourself a timer and keep track of the length of time you spend in data gathering. Aim to progress the consultation and transition to clinical management at minute 6.
Want to Consult in 12 Minutes?
🤔 Up for a Challenge
Consult in 10 minutes as an experiment. By applying a constraint, you will have to increase your pace and be more selective with your questions and progress your consultation.
