Medical Student Attachments and Electives at the Aviemore Medical Practice

Medical students have been an important and welcome part of life at the Aviemore Medical Practice (AMP) for many years now. Our friendly, laid-back and rather informal outlook on life is one that most medical students seem to easily associate with. In more recent years, we have become part of Aberdeen University Medical School's official teaching program. As a result, we now take students from both Phases III and IV on attachments in Aviemore. This page is designed to give prospective students an idea of what life on attachment at AMP might be like, as well as more general information about Aviemore and the surrounding area. We love it here and we're sure you will too.

We took an enforced break from student attachments in 2005 - increased research commitments on the part of Dr Langran meant he was frequently absent from the practice. We are pleased to say that this project has now been completed and we are once again open for students from summer 2006!

Please browse the links below for more information:

Life as a medical student in Aviemore Aberdeen University Placements - Phase III; Phase IV Day release in Aviemore Medical Students from other universities What can we arrange for you? Research @ Aviemore Medical Practice Current Commitments

Previous students & quotes Accommodation Is Aviemore the right place for me? Where are we?! Contacting Us Aviemore and surrounds Pictures in and around Aviemore

Life as a medical student in Aviemore

In two words - pretty relaxed! As a student we try to treat you as a member of our team - we are all on first name terms with each other and with the vast majority of our patients; after all, "Dr Mike" is much easier to remember and spell than "Dr Langran". We hope that all students who spend time with us go away feeling that their time was well spent and that they were made to feel welcome. In fact, the usual 'criticism' is that students were made too welcome - baseline LFT's are recommended....We are proud of our reputation for being an extremely sociable practice - we have regular practice nights out and BBQ's all year round (an Aviemore winter BBQ has to be experienced to be believed....it usually snows like thunder!) and medical students are more than welcome to come along for the fun. We have good relationships with most drug companies representatives and enjoy meals out with them from time to time which students are also most welcome to attend. Twice a week, we have informal drug-company sponsored lunches from 12.30-1.30pm in our coffee room. For many years, we have held an unofficial 'branch surgery' at the Old Bridge Inn just off the ski road, every Weds evening from 5.45 to 6.30pm. Various liquid medications are tested and distributed during these sessions and again you are more than welcome to join us. The weekly quiz night at the Cairngorm Hotel is also extremely popular - students with good general knowledge skills are especially welcome as the health centre staff's performance in recent months has been appalling. Finally, we encourage past students to maintain contact with us - most call in for a coffee from time to time or we meet up on the ski slopes in winter. Aviemore is one of those places that's very hard to leave.....

Our philosophy is that life is to be lived to the full - we are fortunate to be on the doorstep of some of Scotland's most beautiful scenery and we don't let it go to waste - neither should you! All of our doctors and many of the practice staff are outdoor enthusiasts and we encourage you to get involved as you wish - we can help you to go walking, cycling (road and mountain), climbing, fishing, sailing and [in winter] skiing, snowboarding, ski-touring, telemarking, ice-climbing...the list goes on. Aviemore also has good facilities for more sedate activities including swimming, tennis, snooker etc. Mike Langran is the ski patrol doctor for CairnGorm Mountain and can organise sessions with the ski patrol there or at any of the other four Scottish ski areas. Although not absolutely essential, having your own means of transport is certainly useful to make the most of this area's attractions - and if you have a mountain bike - bring that along as Mike's a keen mountain biker and likes to pretend he's still young.

On a more mundane day to day level, the surgery is open from 8.45am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Most appointment sessions run from 9am-11am, and then from 2-4pm or from 3.30 to 5.30pm. 10 minute appointments are the rule, although medical students get 20 minutes for the consultations they do. We do offer some sessions from 11.30-1.30pm for those at work. Since December 2004, NHS Highland have taken over responsibility for out of hours (OOH) care - students are welcome to spend time with the OOH doctor if they wish.

We use the GPASS general practice software and all consulting rooms are networked with high speed internet access. This is available to medical students for emails, online searches etc. We also have a fully stocked library and digital video recording facilities for any 'keenies' who wish to brush up on their stage skills whilst consulting. Every other Tuesday lunchtime, we have a clinical meeting after a drug-rep sponsored lunch when we discuss a wide range of clinical issues, some of which may be of interest to students and you're welcome to take part (and educate us!)

Out with surgeries, we still do quite a few home visits in and around the Aviemore area. Call us old fashioned, but we really enjoy this aspect of the job and consider it a real privilege to be allowed to see patients in their home and family environment. Students are again encouraged to take an active part in these visits. We also operate a BASICS immediate care scheme - responding at the request of the police or ambulance service to road traffic accidents, collapses, mountain trauma etc. These, by their very nature, happen at unpredictable times - on rare occasions safety issues may preclude students' participation but otherwise you are welcome to see us in action on such calls. For more information on our BASICS scheme click here.

We also try to show you the full range and depth of the primary health care team (PHCT) of which GP's are but one small part. To this end, we will try and arrange for you to spend time with our nurses (both in the practice and out in the community), health visitor, pharmacist, CPN, social workers, radiographer etc. Obviously, this will depend on their availability when you are with us. We also have a number of visiting consultant clinics (including psychology, geriatrics, sexual health and psychiatry) which you are free to attend as well. Last but not least, early on we put you poor souls in the hands of our reception staff - you might think this will help you understand how an efficient office functions - in fact it's more likely to test your patience!

More recently, Alistair Appleby as joined us as a partner. Alistair has a wealth of experience in both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and Mike and Alistair will be sharing the medical student tutor role from January 2007.

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Aberdeen University Placements

The following is a very brief description of phase III and IV attachments in Aviemore. Other details are provided in the phase III/IV handbooks that you will be given prior to coming to Aviemore. Please ensure that you make telephone or email contact with Mike Langran at least 2 weeks before you come to Aviemore just to confirm all details of the attachment. If phoning, usually around 11-11.30am is best. If Mike's out we can take a contact number and he'll call or text you back.


Tel - 01479 810326/810258
Email Mike Langran

We want your time in Aviemore to be fun and useful to you...this page (we hope) tells you about us, and we'd like to know a bit about you in return. We therefore ask that all students coming to Aviemore download this form and preferably email it to Mike in advance (address above) or else print it out and bring it with you. Before you leave, we would also like to take a digital photo of you as something to remind us of you. By this time though, we'll probably have got some other incriminating photos of you and vice versa!

It is also very useful if you can have a think before you come to Aviemore about what medical topics you feel you might like us to cover with you in more depth. Whilst we don't proclaim to be walking Oxford Textbooks of Medicine, we like to know if there are topics or areas you would like us to cover with you - again really so that you can get the most out of your time with us.

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Phase III

Phase III teaching at the practice lasts for 4 weeks is really designed to give students a flavour of what life in general practice is all about. Your tutor will be Dr Mike Langran, with whom you will spend the majority of your time when seeing patients. Mike is assisted by Dr EllieMartin and Dr Alistair Appleby, especially during the ski season when Mike is often away from the practice 'working' (yeah, right) with the ski patrol on CairnGorm. You will however spend time in consultations with all the GP's in the practice, especially early on in the attachment. This allows you to see that all GP's are different - we all have differing consulting styles and tend to see different groups of patients, it's one of the many beauties of general practice - how boring if we were all the same. For a phase III attachment you get to spend a lot of time with many other members of the PHCT (see above) so that you can see how GP's work as part of that team. Whilst you are with us, you will be allocated a specific patient for you to visit several times over the course of your time with us - this helps you to understand the concept of continuity of care - again, something very important to us as GP's. At the end of the attachment, you will be expected to give a presentation on the care the patient receives from the PHCT and how the GP forms part of this. You are also expected to take 12 consultations with patients on your own - two of these will be children. Don't worry, Mike, Ellie or Alistair won't be far away and will discuss each case with you after you have seen the patient. Other details of the attachment are detailed in the phase III handbook that you will be given prior to coming to Aviemore. Click here for an example of a phase III attachment timetable, taken from a recent student attachment.

To get the most out of your time with us, it is important for us early on to assess your needs so that we may tailor our education to them. Please be honest and let us know what you feel you need to spend more time on....hopefully by the end of your time with us you'll feel a lot more confident in your clinical abilities.

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Phase IV

NB - At present, we are not able to take Phase IV students on attachment in Aviemore.

Phase IV teaching involves a 6 week spell at the practice and is a combination of consultations, a project and another patient report. Again, your main tutors will be Dr Mike Langran and Dr Alistair Appleby (see explanation above under phase III attachments). Consultations take a similar pattern to phase III, except that students are expected to keep a log of many more patients and also have to see many more patients on their own. On average, three or four consultation sessions per week involve the student - the rest of the time is allocated to project/case study work. One day per week, students get together at one of the practices involved in teaching and spend the day with the relevant GP leading the session. Cases are discussed, various GP topics debated, local sights visited and there's usually a nice lunch thrown in too - see below for a typical day release programme. A typical phase IV timetable will appear on this site shortly.
 

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Day release in Aviemore

Those of you on a phase IV attachment in the same 'cell' as Aviemore, get to spend one glorious day with us on day release with all the other students in your 'cell' (great term that). Day release is a great idea and allows students to get together, socialise and have a good day out at our expense. A typical timetable for day release in Aviemore is illustrated. We try and keep it fairly relaxed...

0800 - Students set off for Aviemore

1018 - Mike suddenly remembers that it's day release day and wife pushes him into the shower

1025 - Students arrive at AMP

1028 - Mike arrives at AMP

1030 - Coffee (and cornflakes for Mike)

1035-1100 - Tour of the building and general chit chat

1100-1105 - Mike tries to figure out how to fit 6 students into his car. Two end up on roof rack...

1105-1200 - Tour de Aviemore. Students hang on for dear life

1230 - Arrive @ CairnGorm Mountain for tour of facilities and ski patrol rooms.

1245 - Trip up on the funicular railway with lunch at Ptarmigan restaurant (highest in the UK). Mike attempts to convince students that the bar is closed for maintenance.

1400 - Case discussions over (strong) coffee @ Loch Insh Watersports (The first photo on this page is of Loch Insh)

1500 - Back to AMP for refresher session on basic and advanced life support. Most students now fully asleep.

1600 - Depart. Mike goes back to bed.

(With many thanks to the CairnGorm Mountain Ski Area for their generous support of medical student visits over the years)
April 2004 phase IV students out in a snow storm during a visit to the CairnGorm Mountain ski area. Not the warmest of days.....!
 

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Medical Students from other universities

Whilst our first and foremost commitment is to Aberdeen University students, we welcome enquiries from medical students at other universities who may wish to spend some time with us. Unfortunately, we currently have no free spaces until after June 2008 - Aviemore is a popular place! Beyond this though, we can tailor a program to suit your wishes/needs - some of the options are outlined below. If you would like to do some research on snow sports injuries then click here. If you are looking for a snow sports related elective, then you will find more information here. We have previously organised joint electives with students splitting their time between ourselves and the Belford Hospital in Fort William on the west coast. The Belford is a very friendly wee hospital that sees more than it's fair share of mountain trauma from Ben Nevis and Glencoe in particular. We can help with organising accommodation at a decent price in Aviemore although students out with normal Aberdeen University placements will be responsible for meeting the cost of this. We recommend that overseas students have a reasonable command of the English language to get the most out of their time with us - whilst our practice manager speaks fluent French and Mike's wife speaks Gaelic, everything else relies on hand signals. Although not absolutely essential, we also recommend that students have access to a car or motorbike. Car hire can be arranged at reasonable rates locally in Aviemore.

If you (still!) wish to spend time at the Aviemore Medical Practice, then please telephone, write or email us (the details are here) giving us as much notice as possible. Dates that we have already committed to other students are detailed here. If we are free, then we will try and fit you in if at all possible.

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What can we arrange for you?

Apart from research projects and experience of general practice, the following is a list of some of the mountain medicine specialties that we may be able to arrange for you to participate in (some are, inevitably, snow and weather dependent which, being Scotland, cannot be guaranteed):-

Time with any (or all!) of the Scottish Ski Patrols - although obviously CairnGorm is the nearest

See how a ski area operates from the inside - As Mike knows all the permanent staff at the CairnGorm Ski Area, you can taste what life is like in each department from the ski patrol to operations, electricians, piste bashers etc etc. A fascinating insight rarely available elsewhere!

Visit to the 202 Squadron Search and Rescue Helicopter base, RAF Lossiemouth

Training sessions with Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team

Training with members of the Search & Rescue Dog Association

Time with the Scottish Avalanche Information Service

Time with the Cairngorm Ranger Service

Attachments with Scottish Ambulance Service paramedics

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Research @ Aviemore Medical Practice

If you've read any of the other pages on www.ski-injury.com, you will see that Mike conducts research into the causes and prevention of snow sports injuries and also works for BASICS Education (Scotland) on immediate care and emergency medicine course development. On the snow front, every winter season many painful hours are spent collating, entering and analysing data on both injured and uninjured skiers, snowboarders and the like. Mike is an honorary clinical research fellow at the Centre for Rural Health (part of the University of Aberdeen) and has access to statistical analysis programs (SPSS 13.0) and reference software (Reference Manager 11). Students who are interested in tasting a bit of research either as a special study module or as part of a more formal project are encouraged to contact Mike to see what opportunities might exist. To date, several students (like Rachel, left) have completed research projects or electives in this manner, usually combining a visit to an overseas ski area with their trip to Aviemore (see previous students). Injury statistics can then be compared between CairnGorm and the chosen resort. You may not believe it, but this can bring statistics to life once they are being applied to a topic that you're actually interested in!

Similarly, there might be openings to do some research with Mike on emergency medicine (in particular how it affects rural general practitioners). Please give me as much notice as possible as every year I have several students (some on distance learning) engaged in these activities.....but if there's a vacancy and you're keen and don't mind maybe spending time out on the Scottish ski slopes (in all weathers!), you too might get bitten by the bug of research...several have been already! Once again, research work of this nature need not be boring so if there's snow then Mike can usually arrange for you to have some fun on the piste too.

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Current Commitments

For some reason, we can be a rather popular for attachments! Aberdeen University students will always take priority for us and we often cannot make a definite commitment until we know the dates and schedules of their placements. Over and above this, at present the following dates are either already definitely filled or we have other things booked and are therefore unavailable for medical student placements:

We are currently fully booked for student electives until June 2008.

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Previous Students

The following students (some of whom have since been miraculously transformed into doctors) have spent placements with us in recent years....

• Jenny Brodie (phase IV)

• Michelle Gibson (phase IV)

• Carlie de Angelis (phase III)

• Cheryl Tallon (phase IV - collaborative snowboard elective with Whistler Medical Centre, BC)

• Edith Watson (phase IV - collaborative ski elective with a ski area somewhere in America that escapes me just now.....)

• David Glennie (phase III)

• Sarah Elton (phase IV)

• Duncan Scott (University of Newcastle- collaborative snow sports elective with Belford Hospital, Fort William)

• Rachel Tayler (Phase III)

• Michael Wylie (Phase III)

• Rachel Edwards (Phase IV - collaborative ski elective with Dr Jeff Daniels, Big Sky, Montana)

• Gaynor Graham (Phase IV)

• Emma Surgey (Phase III)

• Fiona Henderson (Phase III)

• Marta and Tomasz Seretny (Krakow University Medical School, Poland)

• Adele Onder (Phase III)

• Emma Wilson (Phase III)

They may be able to give you some more dirt on us.....and us on them....meantime....

Some quotes - from previous students who have been attached to AMP in recent years (and for which no money changed hands......honest!)

"My time in Aviemore was absolutely fantastic, I was very disappointed to leave. Everyone in the practice made me feel very welcome and I would love to go back sometime"

"It's a lovely place with lovely people"

"Aviemore was fantastic - I was really made to feel welcome, was given loads of great opportunities and really enjoyed my time there"

"Everyone made me feel so welcome...I was very sad to leave"

"This was a great attachment. I really enjoyed being in Aviemore - everyone in the practice was friendly and helpful"

"I have really enjoyed my placement here and am disappointed to be going back to Aberdeen"

"I wasn't considering a career in general practice until now - this has changed everything"

"It was great to be treated as a human being for once in medical school - thanks to everyone in the practice for making me feel so much a part of things"

"A really friendly place to be...thank you"

"Saw a whole variety of clinical problems and learnt a lot from all the doctors on different styles of consultation"

"My tutor was always there for me and helped me out when I felt I was getting stuck"

"My time in Aviemore has been fantastic thanks to the friendly and welcoming atmosphere of the practice......and of course the stunning scenery"

"Lots of opportunity to learn and get involved - always made me feel welcome"

" Very friendly and enthusiastic staff"

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Accommodation

As with any popular tourist destination, finding cheap accommodation in Aviemore can be tricky. Aberdeen students have their accommodation sorted and paid for through the University. For all other students, we will assist you wherever possible to find suitable accommodation in or around Aviemore. If you wish to look for alternative accommodation the Aviemore tourist office phone number is 01479 810363 or email us (see contact details).

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Is Aviemore the right place for me?

We want every student who comes to Aviemore to enjoy themselves and feel that their attachment with us was friendly, educational and worthwhile. We like to think we have achieved that so far with the students who have spent time with us previously. Obviously, our practice will not suit every student's tastes - which is why we have tried hard on this page to give you a picture of what life with us is like so you can make your own mind up. As you might have gathered, we like to have fun, try to be sociable, active and aren't too fussed about the formalities of life. So, if you are a miserable, anti-social, couch potato who smokes 80 a day, loves to wear three piece suits and can digest and summarise Scottish Executive NHS circulars with no problems......eerrrmmm, we're probably not your ideal practice.

Don't worry though if you're not sure at this stage if GP life is for you - we are not here to convince you all to be GP's - but we will hope to give you useful experience of a range of medical conditions unique to general practice and even (for those of you who visit us in winter) to Aviemore (such as the famous Aviemore Arse - sustained by lots of snowboarders every year).

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Where are we?!

Aviemore is a small village (pop ~2200) in the Scottish Highlands about 30 miles south of Inverness. The village is well connected with the main A9 Edinburgh-Inverness trunk road and train lines running by the village (the train station is slap bang in the centre of the village). Regular coach services from Scottish Citylink run to Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh - Aberdeen services go via Inverness. Inverness airport is about 45 minutes drive away and has flights to London (Gatwick and Luton), the Isles and Glasgow and Edinburgh. Taxis are plentiful in Aviemore, reasonably priced and very friendly!

Getting to us by road (allow time for the maps to load)

A9 (north and south) - Nothing tricky! Take the appropriate Aviemore turn off the A9 into the village centre and follow the maps below to find us. If you get lost, just ask anyone!

A95 (from Grantown on Spey) - follow the signs to Aviemore - this will bring you in at the north end of the village. Look out for the new pedestrian traffic lights and turn next left - the practice is at the end of that road.

Click here for more maps

 

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Contacting Us

GP medical student tutor - Dr Mike Langran. (In his prolonged absence ask for either Dr Alistair Appleby or Mrs Malcolm, our practice manager).

Aviemore Medical Practice, Muirton, Aviemore, Inverness-shire PH22 1SY, Scotland

Email - click here

Tel 01479 810326

Fax 01479 810067

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Aviemore and surrounds

For more details on Aviemore and the surrounding area, click on the following link

www.aviemore.co.uk

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Pictures in and around Aviemore

Click here for a page of scenic thumbnails of the Aviemore area.

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