Policymakers are increasingly interested in addressing the US primary care physician shortage and achieving measurable accountability for the products of the nation's $15 billion investment in graduate medical education (GME). Using one such measure, we found that sponsoring institutions (SIs) with ≤5 residency programs produce a higher percentage of general internists and family physicians tha...

BACKGROUND Detection of cancer in general practice is challenging because symptoms are diverse. Even so-called alarm symptoms have low positive predictive values of cancer. Nevertheless, appropriate referral is crucial. As 85% of cancer patients initiate their cancer diagnostic pathway in general practice, a Continuing Medical Education meeting (CME-M) in early cancer diagnosis was launched in ...

Anticipatory guidance, a component of Bright Futures, refers to communicating with patients and caregivers to identify and provide information most needed. Providing reliable, appropriate, and culturally competent anticipatory guidance to children, adolescents, and their families at every visit is one of the most essential roles of a primary care provider. D etermining the right information for...

AIM To assess the level of knowledge for bronchial asthma of the primary healthcare physicians serving a rural population on the island of Crete, both before and immediately after a one-day educational course. METHODS Twenty-one primary health care physicians, randomly selected from a list of 14 Health Care Centres on the island of Crete were invited to participate in the study and attended a...

OBJECTIVE The evidence base for information technology (IT) has been criticized, especially with the current emphasis on translational science. The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the role of IT in the implementation of a geriatric education and quality improvement (QI) intervention. DESIGN A mixed-method three-group comparative design was used. The PRECEDE/PROCEED implemen...

A well designed outcomes research study was performed in which 20 primary care physicians were selected to participate. Each physician had more than 30 fibromyalgia patients in their practice. The study design consisted of four phases. In phase one, physicians undertook a self-assessment of their practice. Phase two of the study involved diagnosis and treatment of a virtual case vignette. The t...

BACKGROUND The internet has had a strong impact on how physicians access information and on the development of continuing medical education activities. Evaluation of the effectiveness of these activities has lagged behind their development. METHODS To determine the effectiveness of a group of 48 internet continuing medical education (CME) activities, case vignette surveys were administered to...

INTRODUCTION It is widely accepted that medical undergraduate and postgraduate education should address issues related to human diversity. Despite the growth of guidelines and training resources, little is known about primary healthcare professionals' perceptions about their work with patients from diverse communities. OBJECTIVE This research explored GP Registrars' views of their learning ne...

Family physicians have access to numerous evidence-based electronic knowledge resources (EKRs) for retrieving treatment recommendations when needed. In addition, resources received via e-mail, such as e-Therapeutics Highlights, help FPs stay up to date. The Highlights are selected from the content of e-Therapeutics+, a Canadian primary care reference written, updated, and reviewed by Canadian p...