GP and academic Registrar, Dr Georga Cooke is about to undertake research into Registrars and their relationships with resilience. She shares the motivations behind her research with RCubed….

I am currently a GP Registrar. I’m combining my clinical work with an RLO job at my RTP and an academic post at Bond University. My research project is examining the relationship between resilience, stress and uncertainty in GP Registrars. It’s a topic that has sparked a lot of discussion amongst both registrar and supervisor colleagues.

Looking back,

it’s difficult to say why I chose resilience to be part of my research project. I brainstormed many ideas before settling on this one. I was first exposed to the academic discipline of resilience during a psychology subject on developmental disorders that I took during my first degree. A few years ago I read a book, Resilience, by Anne Deveson, which is a wonderful mix between memoir, social commentary and academic writing, as well as being a great read. Looking back, resilience is something that I have been interested in for a long time.

Then when RCubed was launched during my first year of General Practice experience, I began to think of burnout and resilience more personally. I found my first year in General Practice to be immensely rewarding but also very stressful. As GPs, we are faced with having to make decisions with patients in a very uncertain environment. We see patients who are often early in their illness, often with complex and seemingly unrelated symptoms. We are encouraged to rule out ‘serious’ diagnoses, as part of our initial diagnostic strategy.

My first supervisor referred to dealing with this as learning about the art of medicine. Dr Olser had a similar perspective – “Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability”. I hope my research will help in understanding how we navigate

through this and emerge as resilient GPs on the other side.

If you are a GP Registrar and are interested in participating in Georga’s study, please contact her

at gcooke@bond.edu.au

General Practice Academic posts allow Registrars to research areas of interest in clinical practice and develop skills in leadership, teaching, project work and critical thinking. Registrars combine research, teaching and clinical work over a 12 month period. The posts are funded part-time and can be undertaken as an extended skills post or as additional training. If you are interested in applying for an Academic post, visit the Academic Training section on the AGPT program website.