Family Medicine In The Undergraduate Curriculum

It has been recognised by governments and healthcare organisations worldwide that for Universal Healthcare in pursuit of Health for All under the Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved, effective primary care that is integrated, accessible, and affordable for everyone is essential. This practical guide is the first designed specifically to support those planning and conducting family medicine/primary care education within medical schools around the world. It offers medical educators a collection of concise easy to follow chapters, guiding the reader through the curriculum requirements with key references for further detail. Plain English and practical, deliverable advice, adaptable to different contexts, ensures the content is accessible to those educating medical students in any country, while the structure within sections ensures that family medicine doctors and educators can dip into chapters relevant to their roles, for example curriculum design for academic educators or teaching methods for those educating in clinical practice. Key Features ■ The first “how-to” guide dedicated to effective integration of family medicine teaching into medical school curricula ■ Offers a strong evidence-based framework for integrating family medicine into medical schools ■ Wide in scope, for academics and educationalists at all levels and in all geographies, reflecting and embracing the experience and variation in family medicine across the globe to produce pragmatic and effective information on which medical schools can base change ■ Step-by-step introduction to the processes of literature review (establishing the existing knowledge base), choosing a topic, research questions, and methodology, conducting research, and disseminating results ■ Supported by the WONCA Working Party on Education The book is edited and authored by members of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) Working Party on Education, which is ideally placed to offer a strong platform for medical schools to integrate family medicine whatever the local context, enabling all future doctors, whatever their career aspiration, to understand the importance of family medicine to health systems and holistic medicine and encourage family medicine doctors to inspire students to consider a career in the field.

This practical guide is designed specifically to support those planning and conducting family medicine/primary care education within medical schools around the world. It offers medical educators a collection of pithy, easy to follow chapters, guiding the reader through the curriculum requirements with key references for further detail.

Since the previous edition of Ian McWhinney's text was published in 1989, family medicine has assumed an increasingly important role in the modern health care system. The growth of managed care in The United States and of similar movements in other countries has made it more important than ever to define and conceptualize the discipline and to synthesize its body of knowledge and skills. The author brings to this task a lifetime's experience in family practice and academic family medicine. The first edition was widely acclaimed for its originality, depth of analysis, and elegant style. The book has now been extensively revised, while retaining its original structure. The first ten chapters are devoted, as before, to a conceptualization and description of the field, Much new material has been added on the patient-centered clinical method, illness narratives, the biological basis of family medicine, health promotion, the concept of risk, and the contribution of evidence-based medicine. Chapter 9 now includes an authoritative review of evidence-based preventive strategies. The five clinical chapters exemplify the application of basic principles in practice. These have all been updated with the results of new research. The chapters on the practice of family medicine cover such topics as home care, records and practiced management. The revisions of these reflect many changes that have occurred since the first edition. A new chapter on alternative (complementary) medicine fills the need for reliable information on this topic. The book has been designed to be read as a whole, with fundamental ideas forming a continuous thread which runs through all its sections.

This authoritative volume presents a the first major assessment of family medicine and its impact as a discipline in the United States since its founding in 1969. Under the senior editorship of Professor William Doherty, a nationally know leader in the field of family medicine and family social science, this exciting volume provides: An overview by G. Gayle Stephens, MD . . . . one of the founding fathers of family medicine The outsider's critique of family medicine by Edmond Pellegrino, MD . . . prominent internist and medical educator Achievements of family medicine and its potential in research reviews by key leaders Culpepper, Becker, Doherty, Baird, and Becker Is family medicine a genuine reform movement within medicine and society? Or is family medicine practiced by generalists who are out of step with the true specialization needed in today's medicine? Top authorities both inside and outside the specialty address the debate surrounding family medicine in the first truly balanced overview of this controversial branch of medicine. Family physicians discuss the challenges they face in family medicine and synthesize the existing theory and empirical knowledge on the topic. This valuable update on a growing specialization provides historical background as well as practical recommendations for the its future. The best people in the fields--family physicians and other medical specialists, as well as sociologists, anthropologists, and family social scientists--explore the major issues surrounding family medicine. How far has family medicine come in fulfilling its original mission? How has its mission changes? What are the field's principal achievements? Where has family medicine fallen short? What are the key challenges now facing the field? Among the specific issues discussed are family medicine and the predoctoral medicine curriculum, developmental assessment of family practice, polarities in the identity of family medicine, family medicine as a biopsychosocial discipline, family medicine from a consumer's perspective, and much more.

'McWhinney's Textbook of Family Medicine' is one of the seminal texts in the field, defining the principles and practices of family medicine as a distinct field of practice. The fourth edition presents six new clinical chapters of common problems in family medicine.

International Perspectives on Primary Care Research examines how the evidence base from primary care research can strengthen health care services and delivery, tackle the growing burden of disease, improve quality and safety, and increase a person-centred focus to health care. Demonstrating the inter-professional nature of the discipline, the book also features a section on cross-nation organisations and primary care networks supporting research. National perspectives are offered from researchers in 20 countries that form part of the World Organization of Family Doctors, providing case histories from research-rich to resource-poor nations that illustrate the range of research development and capacity building. This book argues the importance of primary care research, especially to policy makers, decision makers and funders in informing best practice, training primary health care providers and achieving equitable distribution of care.

PRAISE FOR EDUCATING PHYSICIANS "Educating Physicians provides a masterful analysis of undergraduate and graduate medical education in the United States today. It represents a major educational document, based firmly on educational psychology, learning theory, empirical studies, and careful personal observations of many individual programs. It also recognizes the importance of financing, regulation, and institutional culture on the learning environment, which suffuses its recommendations for reform with cogency and power. Most important, like Abraham Flexner's classic study a century ago, the report recognizes that medical education and practice, at their core, are profoundly moral enterprises. This is a landmark volume that merits attention from anyone even peripherally involved with medical education." —Kenneth M. Ludmerer, author, Time to Heal: American Medical Education from the Turn of the Century to the Era of Managed Care "This is a very important book that comes at a critical time in our nation's history. We will not have enduring health care reform in this country unless we rethink our medical education paradigms. This book is a call to arms for doing just that." —George E. Thibault, president, Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation "The authors provide us with the evidence-based model for physician education with associated changes in infrastructure, policy, and our roles as educators. Whether you agree or not with their conclusions, if you are a teacher this book is a must-read as it will frame both what and how we discuss medical education throughout the current century." —Deborah Simpson, associate dean for educational support and evaluation, Medical College of Wisconsin "A provocative book that provides us with a creative vision for medical education. Using in-depth case studies of innovative educational practices illustrating what is actually possible, the authors provide sage advice for transforming medical education on the basis of learning theories and educational research." —Judith L. Bowen, professor of medicine, Oregon Health & Science University