As a student I spent two weeks in a rural GP practice. I sat in on consultations and several of the GPs asked me, in my first week of clinical training, how their colleagues handled their consultations. I realised how rarely GPs observe each other at work.
Later in my training I watched another GP make a hash of a consultation. He was abashed, but it taught me a reassuring lesson: even an acknowledged consultation expert can dig himself into a hole he can’t get out of.
Since I qualified, some of the most useful tricks of the trade that I have picked up have been acquired when sitting in with other GPs. I don’t mean clinical medicine, but ways of behaving, ways of putting things. But once we have finished our training, we seldom get that opportunity.
