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General Practice Education: Context and Trends

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Clinical Education for the Health Professions

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Abstract

General practitioners (GPs) provision of longitudinal, relationship-based, holistic care to people and communities contributes to cost-effective health systems. Current trends are an increase in complexity of GPs’ work as patients age and develop more chronic diseases, and there are increased options for diagnosis and treatment. Practice size has increased as has the number of different health professionals and learners who provide primary care.

Doctors who want to become GPs work in hospital and general practice as GP registrars. These training programs are often based on pragmatics and tradition rather than contemporary educational evidence or theory. Evidence shows that GP registrars learn most by working as GPs in practice under supervision, and there are questions about the relevance of hospital work as a junior doctor, to future work as a GP.

Trends in general practitioner training include early assessment to ensure training builds on strengths and targets educational need; a focus on learning in general practice under supervision, with external education designed complementarily; programmatic work-based assessment and demonstration of learning; and a final assessment process where GPs prove they have developed mastery of their craft.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health Workforce Division, Commonwealth Department of Health, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Susan M. Wearne

  2. Academic Unit of General Practice, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Susan M. Wearne

  3. Eastern Victoria GP Training, Churchill, VIC, Australia

    James B. Brown

  4. Gippsland Medical School, Monash University , Churchill, VIC, Australia

    James B. Brown

Authors
  1. Susan M. Wearne
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  2. James B. Brown
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susan M. Wearne .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Monash University, School of Clinical Sciences, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Debra Nestel

  2. King’s College London, London, UK

    Gabriel Reedy

  3. La Trobe University, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Lisa McKenna

  4. Bond University, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

    Suzanne Gough

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Wearne, S.M., Brown, J.B. (2023). General Practice Education: Context and Trends. In: Nestel, D., Reedy, G., McKenna, L., Gough, S. (eds) Clinical Education for the Health Professions. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3344-0_6

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