Nine out of ten individuals in low- and middle- income countries lack access to surgical care. There is an immense need for increased surgical and procedural administration in remote, rural, and under-resourced areas. This calls for better training, regulation, and understanding of generalist/non-specialist physicians (NSPs) in remote and rural places who are often performing basic surgical and procedural skills due to care gaps and lack of specialists. There is literature on procedural and surgical administration at the national and hospital levels, but there is less data related to individual providers. Furthermore, the little data that is individualized to providers often compares non-physician clinicians to all physicians. Therefore, better research specific to NSPs and their experiences with procedural and surgical care is needed. The purpose of this presentation is to share research and data geared towards the essential skills needs of NSPs in rural and remote global settings. This will be followed by discussion by a panel of physician educators with practice and teaching experience in remote settings. In particular, we seek to better understand training needs in terms of emergent/essential procedural and surgical skills. We will further guide a discussion about education and resource allocation for individuals currently practicing or seeking to practice medicine in rural or remote locations. We hope this session and discussion will drive better support of health care providers on the frontlines of tackling the global surgical and essential skills care gap.

1. Gain insight into the surgical/procedural experiences and needs of remote/rural non-specialist physicians (NSPs)

2. Understand the current landscape of research and education currently being performed in the field of emergency care and essential surgery

3. Learn and brainstorm on how physicians, health policymakers, and educators can better support the training of NSPs on the frontlines of tackling the global surgical care gap

Australian rural clinical schools now have 20 years’ experience providing medical students with one or more years of clinical training in rural areas during their medical student training. The geography of Australia necessitates that many of these students are placed in small rural communities where they are based in general practice and follow patients and their supervisors into small rural hospitals. In Australia, many of these general practices are small owner-occupied businesses, although in more remote areas they may be state government run or corporate-owned entities. This professional forum will draw on the experience of the presenters to describe four aspects of supervision support: (i) Contracts with GP practices (ii) direct clinician engagement (iii) student contributions and (iv) audit and research.

This forum will be presented by members of the Federation of Rural Australian Medical Educators (FRAME), who have senior leadership roles in four Australian rural clinical schools. It will appeal to GPs interested in or already engaged in medical student supervision as well as practice managers, students and university staff involved in medical student clinical placements.

1. General practitioners who work in a range of different business models can supervise medical students
2. Quality supervision is facilitated by developing a culture of learning within the practice
3. Clinical supervisors value authentic contribution to patient care and continuous quality improvement