INTRODUCTION Shortages in the Australian medical workforce have been a concern for the rural sector and government alike for many years. The Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care has implemented the Government's Regional Health Strategy to secure a rural education and training network which, it is hoped, will increase the availability and viability of rural health services in the long...

BACKGROUND There is limited understanding of the impact of Triple C competency-based curriculums on the preparation of residents for family practice. This paper describes a competency-based curriculum within an integrated longitudinal block design and presents preliminary evaluation data on the impact of this curriculum on preparedness for family practice. METHODS First and second year family...

INTRODUCTION The aim of the present study was to explore the current use of supervision groups and the value of such groups for today's Danish general practitioners (GPs). MATERIAL AND METHODS A questionnaire was sent to a representative sample comprising 10% of GPs registered with the Organisation of General Practitioners in Denmark. RESULTS More than 60% of Danish GPs have participated in...

OBJECTIVE To report the process of introduction, development and sustenance of a curriculum for a department of general practice in the context of changing curricula required by the General Medical Council. SETTING AND CONTEXT Tayside Centre for General Practice, the Department of General Practice within Dundee University Medical School. METHODS Use of action research methodology common in ...

General practice-based research activity is increasing rapidly, particularly for large, collaborative, multi-centre studies. We conducted semi-structured interviews with general practitioners and other professionals at practices in the East London and the City Health Authority area, to investigate the difficulties presented by becoming involved in these studies. Interviewees' main concerns were...

The Royal College of General Practitioners is the largest membership organisation in the United Kingdom solely for GPs. Founded in 1952, it has over 46,000 members who are committed to improving patient care, developing their own skills and promoting general practice as a discipline. We are an independent professional body with enormous expertise in patient–centred generalist clinical care. Thr...

OBJECTIVE To design and validate a new competency based selection system to recruit general practice registrars, comprising a competency based application form, referees' reports, and an assessment centre. DESIGN Longitudinal predictive validity study and a matched case comparison. SETTING South Yorkshire and East Midlands region, United Kingdom, comprising three deaneries. PARTICIPANTS 4...

A survey of general practice in the London borough of Lambeth was analysed to discover how the distance from a patient's home to a medical facility affects the utilisation of that facility. It was shown that distance has a negative effect on utilisation for all population groups except men aged 15 to 64. The effect was especially marked for women, for the elderly, and for Social Classes III, IV...

BACKGROUND Managers in general practice perform a variety of roles, from purely administrative to higher-level strategic planning. There has been little research investigating in detail how they perform these roles and the problems that they encounter. The new General Medical Services (GMS) contract contains new management challenges and it is not clear how practices will meet these. AIM To i...

Certain sociological problems are less likely than others to be studied through primary field research. Some deal with topics that do not seem important enough to warrant the expense of a full-scale field inquiry; others treat subjects about which most people believe the facts are known; some involve events and opinions in the past which cannot be measured among current populations. Under these...