Trainer – Registrar Education and Assessment Toolkit

What do you want to do with your registrar today?

TREAT

Islander trip to church

I want to assess the registrar’s learning needs based on the patients tey see

Use the PUNS and DENS tool

What is it?

This is a very well regarded tool that identifies Doctor’s Educational Needs (DENS) from Patients Unmet Needs (PUNS). In other words, gaps in the doctors knowledge or skills are identified from the patients they are seeing day to day.

Who developed it?

This was invented by Dr. Richard Eve, a GP in the UK and has been widely used in the UK. This version of it comes from the GPET Assessment During Training guidelines.

How is it done?

The form is kept as a logbook of patients. When a patient has a need (not a want!) that is not fulfilled, then the reason for this is identified. A common reason is the doctor had some knowledge or skill lacking, and this can then be filled.

What does the supervisor do?

Encourage the registrar to keep the log and help identify patient unmet needs and any corresponding educational needs of the registrar.

Practice tips

Help the task seem less daunting to the registrar by showing some of your own educational needs.

Remember that some patient unmet needs are not due to educational needs of the doctor - eg. There maybe no physio available or no bulk billing specialist available. (And are there any ways of fulfilling these needs?)

Further Informatione

Quite extensive instructions are given with the form, including some worked examples, or contact Tim Senior