Table 5 Data display of verbatim statements in theme and sub-themes ‘Benefits to the practice’

Knowledge exchange with others

General practitioners often say that they learn a lot off the students too, because students actually have an opportunity to read the most current literature. So they will update the doctors, rather than the doctors trying to fit that in their busy day. (Female medical student#2 at P1)

And I know the staff here enjoy it because there’s young people with new ideas and new ways of looking at things, or they will challenge; which is good for the older person because it means that they’re learning, and they’re refreshing themselves. (Male practice manager#1 at P2). There’s more interaction (with learners present). But you learn a lot more. I think you listen, and you, because there is more explaining, I myself find that I learn a lot more too because the doctors are explaining to the interns, and I think it’s a learning (curve) here for all of us (Female nurse#1 at P1)

(Having the learners) keeps the doctors up to date with current stuff, because I have heard it. You’d be talking, and one of the interns would go, ‘oh yeah, but they have this new drug’ etc. So, both feed off each other. You know what I mean? Like, the old feed off the new and that keeps our older doctors younger and makes our younger ones a bit smarter.’ (Female patient#1 at P1)

Sense of community

So we have our own little team going and we do a lot of, we have a lot of communication between all of us. And I live with one of the interns. So I see her every morning and night and we usually have a bit of a debrief about the day (Female intern#2 at P3).

They (learners) make the overall organisation vibrant and active and moving forward; we have to do this (move forward) to meet an educational standard meaning that we’re all having to meet a whole lot of personal standards, and that would be, to my mind, the biggest benefit of the whole thing. Although it adds to general satisfaction for everyone too, I think. (Male supervisor#2 at P1)

More patient services

And I think as a practice we seem to be able to accommodate more people for emergencies now we’ve got that extra person to do those things (Female registrar#1 at P1)

It just helped, that extra person to help with patient load and that sort of thing; and when at first we used to get, the interns would help us quite a bit in the treatment room, if a patient needed a script or something we would get them to write it up, or any triages. (Female Nurse#1 at P2)

Before they started (having) the interns here it was hard to get an appointment there for… eighteen months. (Female patient#2 and P3)

Supervisor satisfaction

I know that they (supervisors) look forward to their teaching sessions, because they get something out it too, you know, and you, you know, well I dare say if you’ve been in that environment where you’ve been teaching or educating somebody you get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing them grow. (Female medical student#2 at P3)

Well, I do it for my own good because I enjoy teaching, I enjoy the learning I achieve by the accumulation of knowledge from all the learners. (Male supervisor#1 at P2)

No, I think it brings a lot to them, as well. Because they’re teaching something that, obviously, they love. (Male patient#2 at P1)