Abstract
BackgroundGeneralist physician care is associated with improved patient outcomes. Despite initiatives to promote generalism in educational settings, recruitment to generalist disciplines remains less than required to serve societal needs. Increasingly this impacts not just general practice but also generalist specialties such as internal medicine, surgery, and paediatrics. One potential factor for this deficit is a lack of explicit attention to generalism as a praxis, including clarifying key aspects of generalist expertise.AimTo examine empirical clinical literature on generalism, and characterise how generalism is described and delivered by physicians in primary and secondary care.Design & settingA systematic mixed studies review (SMSR) including quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods studies, and systematic reviews of physician generalist practice.MethodMEDLINE, Psycinfo, SocINDEX, Embase, Ovid HealthSTAR, Scopus, and Web of Science will be searched for English language studies from 1999 to present, using a structured search. Given study heterogeneity, quality appraisal will not be performed. Two reviewers will perform study selection for each study. Data extraction will focus on how generalism is defined and characterised, including the clinical care provided by generalists and patient experiences of generalist care. Quantitative and qualitative data will be summarised in tabular and narrative form. Convergent synthesis design will then be used to synthesise quantitative and qualitative data.ConclusionFindings will characterise generalism and generalist practice from a grassroots clinical perspective. By identifying similarities and differences across generalist disciplines, this work will inform more focused educational initiatives on generalism at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including collaborations between generalist disciplines.
Highlights
Background and rationaleA robust workforce of GPs is described as ‘the1
Data extraction will focus on how generalism is defined and characterised, including the clinical care provided by generalists and patient experiences of generalist care
One potential reason is a lack of clarity on key features of generalism and how they overlap or potentially differ across disciplines
Summary
Include improved patient health outcomes and 5. Efficient cost-effective healthcare systems.[3,4] Yet recruitment into generalist specialties in many developed countries, including the US, UK, and. Generalist physician care is associated with improved patient outcomes. Despite initiatives to promote generalism in educational settings, recruitment to generalist disciplines remains less than required to serve societal needs. This impacts not just general practice and generalist specialties such as internal medicine, surgery, and paediatrics. One potential factor for this deficit is a lack of explicit attention to generalism as a praxis, including clarifying key aspects of generalist expertise
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