The organisation of group practice : a report of a sub-committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee.
- Great Britain. Standing Medical Advisory Committee
- Date:
- 1971
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: The organisation of group practice : a report of a sub-committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.
86/108 page 78
![215. The universities and medical schools must, for obvious reasons, be respon- sible for undergraduate training in all disciplines of medicine. In most medical schools the training of the undergraduate still takes place almost entirely within the confines of the teaching hospital, and it is only recently that some universities have begun to take an interest in the postgraduate training of doctors who will be working outside the hospital. The Royal College of General Practitioners must take considerable credit for the progress that has been achieved in persuading uni- versities to interest themselves in the education of the general practitioner. The exposure of the undergraduate to medicine outside the hospital can only be accomplished if there are strong and active departments of social medicine and general practice within the medical schools. These departments could together form a division of community medicine. 216. Some medical schools are experimenting with methods of introducing undergraduates to medicine outside the hospital. Unless it can demonstrate this in the service situation, a department of general practice cannot fulfil its role. The vocational training of general practitioners must look to the future of primary medical care rather than to present day general practice. For these reasons the department of general practice should be based upon a group practice centre in close association with the teaching hospital, and we recommend that those practices which are the focus of the department of general practice should com- bine the functions of service with those of teaching and research. Amongst other activities such centres should experiment with carefully selected alternative methods of providing primary medical care. The results of these studies would enable policy decisions to be based on satisfactory data. 217. Adepartment of general practice in a medical school will be unable to provide all the requirements of both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. There will consequently be the need for a number of teaching practices which should be associated with the department of general practice. These practices will be involved in the teaching of undergraduates, including the teaching of those who choose general practice for their elective period, as well as those linked to selected general practitioners under a university attachment scheme. In the postgraduate phase general practitioners will be needed to take part in the vocational] training pro- gramme. 218. The teaching practices referred to in the preceding paragraph will need to be carefully chosen and supervised, and must accept the need for periodic review of their premises and programmes. We recommend that this should be the respon- sibility either of the universities or of the Regional Postgraduate Committees. Teachers in these practices will have to be instructed in teaching methods, and additional staff, accommodation and finance will be necessary. 219. In this chapter we have concentrated on the educational requirements of the doctor. It must be obvious, however, that the group practice will have a part to play in the training of nurses, health visitors, social workers and of student medical secretaries and receptionists. It would be logical if these teaching require- ments were to be undertaken within the same practices that were involved in the training of doctors. 220. It is obvious that in any consideration of health centres and group practices of the future the role of some of these as teaching centres must be accepted, and the requirements of teaching in terms of accommodation, equipment, personnel](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32223328_0086.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
