Dr Mike Goold prepared the following after the Trainer Residential in May 2001.

Dear John

As promised I am writing to summarise the thoughts of the Trainer Group during my 'MRCGP Workshop' at the recent Residential Trainers Conference. I've listed them as follows:

1. The scheme should continue to encourage registrars to sit the MRCGP exam.

2. The scheme and trainers should continue to aid registrars in their efforts to achieve the goal of passing the MRCGP. The current aids to registrars from the scheme are appropriate.

3. It was felt that the current half day release scheme deals appropriately with aiding registrars in their preparation for the exam, therefore no changes were proposed.

4. It was felt that most aspects of the MRCGP exam can be incorporated into teaching.

5. It is important to impress on GP registrars from an early point in their training the principle of 'ownership' ie it is their exam, their responsibility and not the scheme's or the trainers responsibility.

6. There may be times where preparing the registrar for the exam could 'interfere' with teaching. Trainers and registrars need to be aware of this and guard against spending too much of allocated teaching time in preparing the registrars for the exam, especially when little is to be learnt from these sessions.

7. It was felt that the MRCGP video marking criteria, on its own, should not be used as a 'teaching tool'. If it is to be used, other recognised VCA teaching methods should be incorporated in order to allow teaching and learning to take place.

8. Registrars should be made aware that video consulting for the MRCGP, whilst demonstrating consulting skills, does not however demonstrate 'skilled consulting' necessarily (the analogy of the driving test). This is an important distinction to make.

I believe this accurately describes the main views expressed and agreed on by the trainers. You may wish to use these in the ECVTS Green Book as the scheme policy towards the MRCGP exam.

Yours sincerely

MIKE GOOLD