The Beacon Medical Centre

Medical Education and Reasearch

Sid Valley Practice is a training practice and delivers high quality medical education to junior doctors and medical students. We are also actively involved in medical research.

Medical Training

We are a medical training practice and you may be offered an appointment with a GP speciality trainee or foundation doctor. These doctors are fully qualified and have had considerable experience in several hospital specialities but work with us to complete their training to become GPs.

In addition we teach medical students from Exeter Medical School, sometimes you may be asked to see the doctor or nurse with a student present. You will always be asked beforehand if this is acceptable. You may ask for the student to withdraw if you prefer to have your consultation in private. This practical experience is a key feature of the medical student’s training and by allowing students to sit in you are playing an important part in training the doctors of the future.

Our involvement with medical education is important because it helps to keep the clinical team up to date with the latest evidenced based treatments and helps us to attract some of the very best people to work in our community.

If you are interested in finding out more about the education and training of GPs click on the document link below.

So how do you become a GP

Research

We are also a Research Practice and sometimes recruit patients for research studies supported by the NHS Primary Care Research Network. All studies have been approved by an NHS Research Ethics Committee. If you are invited to participate in research there is no obligation to do so. If you decline this will not affect your treatment in any way.

Anonymised patient data may be used for research that is in the best interests of patients and the NHS as a whole. You cannot be personally identified from such data.

Take a look at our active research projects.

Diabetes Audit

The National Diabetes Audit (NDA) supporting improvement in Diabetes care

Date published: 6th June, 2020
Date last updated: 22nd November, 2023