Outpatient Clinics
Attendance at out-patient clinics is a mandatory requirement of core medical training and will be reviewed at your ARCPs. Trainees are required to attend 40 out-patient clinics over the 2-year period (this recommendation is in effect from August 2019 – see IMT ARCP Decision Aid August 2019 version). 80 Clinics are required over the 3 year period of IMT. Planning is therefore essential and it is crucial to discuss with your ES and clinical area lead to plan the clinic dates as soon as you start working in the new department. Clinic attendance should preferably be scheduled as part of your weekly timetable. If the department cannot provide clinic opportunities (e.g. if there are no rooms for IMTs), please ask the department to release you to obtain clinic experience in other internal medicine specialties.
It is your responsibility to ensure that you attend the required number of out-patient clinics. It is appreciated that with ward commitments this can seem challenging. The following guidance aims to ensure that you achieve the required out-patient clinic attendance. You should agree on a mutual plan for how you will achieve the required out-patient attendance during your initial educational supervisor/clinical supervisor meeting at the beginning of each attachment. We encourage you to meet with the department clinical lead at the start of your rotations. Take this opportunity to discuss and negotiate your clinic experience, which is a mandatory part of your internal medicine training. This should not be compromised upon. Please get in touch with us at an early stage if you are having any difficulties.
It is advised that you arrange time off the ward to attend clinics with your junior doctor colleagues at the start of an attachment. Depending on the specific department and rota cover these might be FY2, IMTY1, CT2 or trust grade doctors. We recommend that you arrange this prior to scheduling your annual leave entitlement. This will ensure adequate clinical cover to allow you to leave the ward and avoids compromising patient care.
In order to meet the 20 clinics per year requirement, you should aim to attend at least 8 out-patient clinics per 4 month-attachment or 12 out-patient clinics per 6 month-attachment (on average 2 per month). Experience on the Ambulatory Care Unit (ACU) can be counted as clinic experience. A minimum of 2 hours on the ACU is required to be considered as a clinic session.
If you are working in a speciality with little or no out-patient opportunity (e.g. intensive care) arrangements should be made with your educational supervisor to facilitate attendance at clinics in other specialities. It is advised to find out a list of medical out-patient clinics at your Trust and the responsible consultants are listed below to help you arrange out of speciality clinic attendance. Please find this handy list of 'top tips for clinics' here.
If, despite following the above steps, you are struggling to attend the required number of out-patient clinics you should raise this with your educational supervisor (ES) or training programme director (TPD) immediately. You should not leave it until the last minute when it may be impossible to resolve the matter. Contact should be made with the appropriate consultant’s secretary in advance of the clinic to confirm it is running and that the consultant is happy for you to attend. The clinic list is provided by the out-patient departments. If you find that there have been changes to the clinic schedule please contact the Medical Education Centre manager, who may be able to help.
You may find our induction video to clinics helpful: A log book to record your Acute take, clinics and Procedural Skills is below.
