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The Trainee Doctor
This introduction is an abridged version of the full introduction to The Trainee Doctor. The full version is available on the GMC website or by pdf in the Publications section.
The GMC sets the standards for the delivery of foundation and specialty including GP training, and quality assures the delivery of training against those standards (for the remainder of this document the term ‘specialty training’ will include GP training). A single point of regulatory responsibility from admission to medical school, through postgraduate training, to continued practice until retirement will ensure consistency of expectations and standards.
Training should prepare and encourage doctors to become life-long learners, during foundation and specialty training, and further as part of continuing medical education and professional development. Training takes place under supervision, appropriate to the level of competence of the trainee, which increasingly, as the trainee progresses through the stages of training, will develop towards independent practice.
The standards must be applied wherever foundation and specialty training take place, including the National Health Service (NHS), other service providers, industry, and the independent sector. Any provision of foundation and specialty training which form part of or the whole of a programme arranged/agreed by the postgraduate dean, will be subject to these standards.
The bodies responsible for managing the quality of foundation and specialty training and meeting these standards are postgraduate deaneries. In many cases the deanery will only be able to demonstrate these standards by working with local education providers (LEPs), the medical Royal Colleges and Faculties and specialty associations. Where responsibility is shared, this is specified under each standard in this document.
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- What evidence will be used to determine whether these standards have been met?
- Standards for postgraduate training