A qualitative study of final-year medical students' perspectives of general practitioners' competencies

Björn Landström,Bengt Mattsson,Carl E Rudebeck

doi:10.5116/ijme.4e79.b49a

Abstract

ObjectivesTo investigate final-year medical students’ perspectives of general practitioners’ competencies. A further aim of the study was to investigate which type of clinical problems is properly managed by GPs according to students.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study of 49 final year medical students from two programmes. Reflective writing statements were used to collect data. Qualitative content analysis was employed to analyse data.ResultsThree themes were identified to explain the conditions of a general practitioner (GP). They are: ‘prerequisites’, ‘patients´ problems’ and ‘competence and clinical judgment’ which reflect the specific features of primary care, presentation of symptoms by patient and the way that GPs approach an actual encounter.ConclusionsThe students valued the importance of unselected patient problems, straightforwardness in contact and care as the characteristics of a competent GP. They viewed patients with different approaches and related their observations to problems of fragmentation within this large area of medical care. This is a period in the training of students in which students’ views of general practice are formed.

Highlights

Over the past ten years, general practice has gained an increasing place in medical training in Europe as early exposure to clinical cases and patient encounter has been emphasised in the undergraduate medical curriculum.[1,2] Similar changes in the Swedish medical curriculum have occurred and students at the six medical schools spend a period of 8-10 weeks in general practice.[3]The World organisation of family doctors (Wonca) has classified core competencies of a general practitioner (GP) into six categories
Since there is only scarce research evidence on students’ perspectives of GP’s competencies, we found it important to conduct a qualitative study of this issue at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Int J Med Educ. 2011; 2:102-109 following task: ‘Describe some situations regarding general problems in general practice where you judge that the GP with his or her competence is specially well equipped to do his or her job compared to other specialists

Summary

Introduction

Over the past ten years, general practice has gained an increasing place in medical training in Europe as early exposure to clinical cases and patient encounter has been emphasised in the undergraduate medical curriculum.[1,2] Similar changes in the Swedish medical curriculum have occurred and students at the six medical schools spend a period of 8-10 weeks in general practice.[3]. The World organisation of family doctors (Wonca) has classified core competencies of a GP into six categories. These competencies are: management, patientcenteredness, problem solver, comprehensiveness approach, community-oriented and holistic approach.[4] These competencies describe a GP’s approach to tasks and patient’s needs. In light of the report by Wonca, the corresponding objectives have been clearly stated in the Swedish Higher Education Ordinance and in medical school curricula.[5, 6]

Objectives

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Discussion

Conclusion