Abstract
General Practice/Family Medicine (GP/FM) is a key discipline within primary health care and so by extension for the whole health care system. An essential condition for effective GP/FM care is a work force that is highly qualified. As society is changing rapidly, a revision of the GP/FM definition is ongoing, in addition to a recent movement of identifying related core values. In this paper, we want to give an overview on how these new paths and perspectives are currently reflected in GP/FM teaching and training. We selected four core values that fit in with possible future visions: person-centered care, continuity of care, cooperation in care, and community-oriented care. By a narrative review, we observed that GP/FM education toward core values is often built around overarching topics. Teaching and learning take place in specific contexts, most of all through placements within communities, primary care settings, or hospital wards. Mixed teaching- and training methods are used combining knowledge, skills, and attitude. Furthermore, collaboration with other health professionals and peers is stressed, in addition to the importance of role models, a holistic focus and the involvement of patients. Since these core values are important within GP/FM and rather few studies on the educational aspects and learning tools were found we advocate encouraging each other more to share good practices, certainly the innovative ones specifically related to GP/FM.
Highlights
In 1978, the Alma Ata declaration (WHO) recognized primary health care as the important first contact of the population for their health care, providing preventive, curative, and rehabilitation services for the community [1]
Main keywords for the search (PubMed) included the four selected core values (“person-centered care,” “continuity of care,” “cooperation in care,” and “community-oriented care”) in combination with “education or training” and “general practice” or “family medicine.”
Our review showed that some studies are dealing with General Practice/Family Medicine (GP/FM) education or training to improve person-centered care [22,23,24]
Summary
In 1978, the Alma Ata declaration (WHO) recognized primary health care as the important first contact of the population for their health care, providing preventive, curative, and rehabilitation services for the community [1]. This has been re-affirmed in 2018 [2]. In order to achieve this, European specialty training centers for GP/FM can rely on European legislation [4] and on the EURACT European Training Requirements [5, 6] The latter is a recently drafted guideline based on the European definition of GP/FM and the 12 characteristics, six core competences, and three features as expressed by the well-known WONCA tree [7]. The convergence of medicine, psychology, sociology, and technology leads to the achievement of care that is predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory [8, 10, 11]
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