Year 6 General Practice Senior Assistantship
Dr Sian Powell
Grant Blair Prize: Sikander Khan
This prize is given in memory of Dr Grant Blair who was co-lead of GPSA from 1995 until 2010, and is given for students that have excelled in a holistic way during the placement, as nominated by their GP Teacher. The winner this year was Sikander Khan and the following nomination shows how deserving he was of this prize.
Sikandar went above and beyond the call of duty for the care of patients. In particular one child opened up to him about her suicidal intent and depression and felt comfortable sharing incredibly sensitive and personal information with him. He also spoke privately to the parent who came with the child and helped her understand the issue and what was being done to help despite her difficulty to understand English. He made sure she was booked in an appointment at the end of the day and the appointment lasted around an hour beyond the scheduled time which meant he went way beyond his expected duties. He showed a real sense of compassion and an absolutely fundamental understanding of what was important to this family.
GPSA Adam Snape QIP Prize: Sijia Yao
This prize is given for a Quality Improvement Project that Year 6 students complete during their 4-week placement in a practice outside London. This year’s winner was Sijia Yao, who created a new ‘Wellbeing Hub’ on the practice website for local Cambridge students. As part of her needs and assets analysis she surveyed clinician views about student needs before gathering the views of local university students on a draft website, which led to further development of the site. Her plan for dissemination and evaluation of the Hub was included, ensuring its sustainability at the practice.
Year 5 General Practice and Primary Health Care Course
Dr Neepa Thacker
The GPPHC Patient Project aims to increase students’ understanding of person-centred care in the context of complex health needs and/or social factors. Students are able to understand and enhance the care of patients by exploring wider issues surrounding care pathways and the interaction between primary/secondary and social care.
Winner: Kinan Wihba
Kinan effectively explored the wider determinants of health in relation to his patient, stressing the importance of trauma-informed care in the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. Through investigating his patient’s support systems in this country and abroad, he involved the multidisciplinary team from the practice and also initiated a referral to social prescribers himself. Kinan made a meaningful impact to his individual patient’s experience and included excellent personal reflection on the doctor-patient dynamic.
Runner-up: Alexandra Cardoso Pinto
Alexandra’s patient project was an impactful case centring on a missed case of metastatic cervical cancer involving complex ethical dimensions. Alexandra provided multiple practical recommendations for her host GP surgery – including utilising a health coaching approach to fully explore her patient’s concerns and community organisations to help support the patient in the future.
Runner-up: Aleksandra Dunin-Borkowska
Aleksandra highlighted a holistic view of her patient’s chronic illness, incorporating the WHO Chronic Care Model in her analysis. Aleksandra made a real effort to navigate her patient’s priorities and challenges and emphasised the importance of joined-up clinical care and the importance of listening to a patient to build trust.
Year 3 Community Action Project
Dr Renee Ewe
Overall winner: Aditi Naik and Shradda Arshanapalli
Supporting Refugees – Beyond the Practice
Shraddha and Aditi worked with social prescribers and a community organisation West London Welcome to identify English learning support and accessibility of affordable food as the main need of the local refugee community. Shraddha and Aditi developed a poster with easily accessible services, ensuring that all contact details and opening hours were up to date.
This was a brilliant project that responded to community priorities to design a resource that can be used for both patients and staff at the GP practice to signpost to community support with food and English lessons. This project involved an exceptionally well-rounded exploration of the sustainability of this project.
Term 1 winner: Noor Halim and Dimitra Georgantaki
Mental health in the BME community
Noor and Dimitra sought community views to identify barriers to seeking mental health support. In doing so, they identified the need to connect patients with culturally sensitive mental health resources. They designed an infographic with resources aimed at the minority ethnic community, and sought feedback on the design of their poster.
This was a well executed project that specifically addressed the needs of the local South Asian community using existing local resources. This project was very well received by the local community as it directly responded to the community’s needs.
Term 2 joint winner: Lee Fernandes and Sharika Munshi
Providing a holistic approach to asylum seekers visiting the GP
Lee and Sharika surveyed staff at their practice to understand their knowledge of existing third party services for refugees and asylum seekers. During their MICA placement, they reached out to NHS England, the Home Office and Queen Charlotte’s Hospital to identify services that are well planned for refugees and areas of improvement. They then used this information to create a spreadsheet that allows clinicians to quickly locate resources that best met patient’s health and social needs, alongside a text template to easily communicate this information to patients.
This project was picked as a joint term winner as Lee and Sharika were able to make use of existing resources in a meaningful way to reduce the burden on GPs, while ensuring that the varied needs of the local community is met.
Term 2 joint winner: Mansi Chitnis and Ammy Awal
Evaluating carer needs and support network accessibility
Mansi and Ammy’s project focused on carers’ awareness of local support services. They expanded upon their surgery’s carers cafe evening by inviting speakers from the local borough to provide information about resources available. Their involvement in the carers cafe resulted in significantly improved attendance and feedback from the attendees was that this was a very useful event to attend.
Years 1 and 2 Patients, Communities and Healthcare
Dr Viral Thakerar