Educational supervision of pre-registration house officers.

An annual survey of the educational supervision of pre-registration house officers has been carried out since 1987 by the Northern Ireland Council for Postgraduate Medical Education and the Queen's University of Belfast. Educational supervision was considered by house officers to be unsatisfactory in 27% of medical posts and 52% of surgical posts. Regular teaching was provided at least weekly in 77% of the posts, but 50% of house officers wanted mor experience of managing common medical emergencies. Over one-third felt administrative duties were excessive. There is a strong argument that hospitals should designate within clinical units a consultant with responsibility for educational supervision of the pre-registration house officers. Creation of the hospital counterpart of the General Practitioner trainer--the educational supervisor--would enhance the educational value of the pre-registration year. This might avoid withdrawal of approval for training purposes from some pre-registration posts.

Anticonvulsant therapy in a general practice population in Northern Ireland.

The clinical management of 242 patients receiving anticonvulsant drugs in a general population of over 75,000 patients in Northern Ireland was reviewed.The prevalence of treated epilepsy was 3.99 per 1,000 population. There were differences in the classification of epilepsy recorded by the general practitioners and an independent epileptologist. In particular, partial epilepsy was under-recorded by the general practitioners. Comparisons between drug dose, type of epilepsy, frequency of fits and antiepileptic drug serum levels were difficult to make. There was, however, evidence of inadequate or inappropriate antiepileptic medication. There were also problems with compliance: 23 per cent of patients had deliberately stopped taking their medication, nearly half of them for over a month at a time.