Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • LATEST ARTICLES
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • RESOURCES
    • About BJGP Open
    • BJGP Open Accessibility Statement
    • Editorial Board
    • Editorial Fellowships
    • Audio Abstracts
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Outreach
    • BJGP Life
    • Research into Publication Science
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Top 10 Research Articles of the Year
  • SPECIAL ISSUES
    • Special issue: Telehealth
    • Special issue: Race and Racism in Primary Care
    • Special issue: COVID-19 and Primary Care
    • Past research calls
  • CONFERENCE
  • RCGP
    • British Journal of General Practice
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers

User menu

  • Alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
Intended for Healthcare Professionals
BJGP Open
  • RCGP
    • British Journal of General Practice
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in
  • Follow bjgp on Twitter
  • Visit bjgp on Facebook
  • Blog
BJGP Open
Intended for Healthcare Professionals

Advanced Search

  • HOME
  • LATEST ARTICLES
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • RESOURCES
    • About BJGP Open
    • BJGP Open Accessibility Statement
    • Editorial Board
    • Editorial Fellowships
    • Audio Abstracts
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Outreach
    • BJGP Life
    • Research into Publication Science
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Top 10 Research Articles of the Year
  • SPECIAL ISSUES
    • Special issue: Telehealth
    • Special issue: Race and Racism in Primary Care
    • Special issue: COVID-19 and Primary Care
    • Past research calls
  • CONFERENCE
Research

Intellectual stimulation in family medicine: an international qualitative study of student perceptions

Kiran Sahota, Patrick Goeres, Martina Kelly, Eugene Tang, Marianna Hofmeister and Hugh Alberti
BJGP Open 2020; 4 (3): bjgpopen20X101045. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgpopen20X101045
Kiran Sahota
1 Faculty of Medical Sciences Cookson Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Patrick Goeres
2 Department of Family Medicine, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Martina Kelly
2 Department of Family Medicine, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Martina Kelly
Eugene Tang
3 Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Marianna Hofmeister
2 Department of Family Medicine, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Hugh Alberti
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: hugh.alberti@ncl.ac.uk
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading
Submit a Response to This Article
Compose eLetter

More information about text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Author Information
First or given name, e.g. 'Peter'.
Your last, or family, name, e.g. 'MacMoody'.
Your email address, e.g. higgs-boson@gmail.com. PLEASE NOTE: your email address will be published.
Your role and/or occupation, e.g. 'Orthopedic Surgeon'.
Your organization or institution (if applicable), e.g. 'Royal Free Hospital'.
Statement of Competing Interests
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Vertical Tabs

Jump to comment:

  • "The most intellectually stimulating of any of the disciplines" - medical student, Calgary
    William R. Phillips, Joanne Reeve and Elizabeth Sturgiss
    Published on: 09 July 2020
  • Published on: (9 July 2020)
    Page navigation anchor for "The most intellectually stimulating of any of the disciplines" - medical student, Calgary
    "The most intellectually stimulating of any of the disciplines" - medical student, Calgary
    • William R. Phillips, Professor Emeritus, Department of Family Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Wa, USA
    • Other Contributors:
      • Joanne Reeve, Professor
      • Elizabeth Sturgiss, Senior Lecturer

    Medical students in focus groups at these two universities spoke vividly about the attractions and distractions in the intellectual life of the general practitioner/family physician. [1] The themes are familiar to many of us who have long worked to share the excitement of a career in general practice. [2]

    It would be helpful to know what involvement the students had in clinical general practice prior to participating in these focus groups. It appears that exposure was very little at Calgary, where most students were in their preclinical studies, and perhaps substantial at Newcastle, with more advanced learners. Did the investigators find any association between student experience in GP and their perceptions about GP?

    It would be interesting to hear the student conversation if the question has been framed differently: What do you find to be intellectually stimulating in medicine and patient care? We suspect many students would include in their answers the foundational values of family medicine. It is our job as clinician-scholar-educators to help ignite their passions in the work we do and the challenges we face.

    It would also be interesting to frame the discussion around clinical scholarship more broadly than about research, not about academia but about the life of the mind. How many more students would see excitement in a professional life energized by mindfulness, reflection, innovation, teamwork, critical questioning and the enduring quest for the b...

    Show More

    Medical students in focus groups at these two universities spoke vividly about the attractions and distractions in the intellectual life of the general practitioner/family physician. [1] The themes are familiar to many of us who have long worked to share the excitement of a career in general practice. [2]

    It would be helpful to know what involvement the students had in clinical general practice prior to participating in these focus groups. It appears that exposure was very little at Calgary, where most students were in their preclinical studies, and perhaps substantial at Newcastle, with more advanced learners. Did the investigators find any association between student experience in GP and their perceptions about GP?

    It would be interesting to hear the student conversation if the question has been framed differently: What do you find to be intellectually stimulating in medicine and patient care? We suspect many students would include in their answers the foundational values of family medicine. It is our job as clinician-scholar-educators to help ignite their passions in the work we do and the challenges we face.

    It would also be interesting to frame the discussion around clinical scholarship more broadly than about research, not about academia but about the life of the mind. How many more students would see excitement in a professional life energized by mindfulness, reflection, innovation, teamwork, critical questioning and the enduring quest for the best of care.

    We need to help students to see that the intellectual challenge of generalist medicine comes not just from what you know (“the challenge of having to know a little about everything” [2]) but also how you use what you know – the Bananarama principle, as the phrase we coined in a recent RCGP article [3].

    For the students in this study who are attracted to family medicine because they “would not have to engage in research”, perhaps we need a new discussion on what is research? For students who struggle to know “what topics they would research”, we encourage them to explore the new GEMs library (https://www.wisegp.co.uk/what-is-a-gem) to gain a flavour of the diversity of topics and research methods used in general practice.

    Recognising the challenges and stimulation of everyday clinical scholarship [4] is the central goal of the WISE GP programme (www.wisegp.co.uk), developed jointly by the Society for Academic Primary Care and the Royal College General Practitioners.

    1. Sahota K, Goeres P, Kelly M, Tang E, Hofmeister M, Alberti H. Intellectual stimulation in family medicine: an international qualitative study of student perceptions. BJGP Open 23 June 2020; bjgpopen20X101045. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgpopen20X101045
    https://bjgpopen.org/content/early/2020/06/23/bjgpopen20X101045

    2. Phillips WR. Medical students in family medicine research: A resource and a responsibility. Family Medicine 1984;16(4):152-153.

    3. Reeve J. WISE GP: Championing the Bananarama principle in general practice. RCGP 8 October 2019. https://www.rcgp.org.uk/clinical-and-research/about/clinical-news/2019/o...

    4. Reeve J, Firth A. Revitalising general practice: unleashing our inner scholar. Br J Gen Pract. 2017 Jun;67(659):266. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp17X691145. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28546403/

    Show Less
    Competing Interests: None declared.
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

In this issue

BJGP Open
Vol. 4, Issue 3
August 2020
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Or,
sign in or create an account with your email address
Email Article

Thank you for recommending BJGP Open.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person to whom you are recommending the page knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Intellectual stimulation in family medicine: an international qualitative study of student perceptions
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from BJGP Open
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from BJGP Open.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Intellectual stimulation in family medicine: an international qualitative study of student perceptions
Kiran Sahota, Patrick Goeres, Martina Kelly, Eugene Tang, Marianna Hofmeister, Hugh Alberti
BJGP Open 2020; 4 (3): bjgpopen20X101045. DOI: 10.3399/bjgpopen20X101045

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Intellectual stimulation in family medicine: an international qualitative study of student perceptions
Kiran Sahota, Patrick Goeres, Martina Kelly, Eugene Tang, Marianna Hofmeister, Hugh Alberti
BJGP Open 2020; 4 (3): bjgpopen20X101045. DOI: 10.3399/bjgpopen20X101045
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Jump to section

  • Top
  • Article
    • Abstract
    • How this fits in
    • Introduction
    • Method
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Notes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Keywords

  • family medicine
  • academic
  • intellectual stimulation
  • qualitative
  • focus group
  • undergraduate
  • career choice
  • schools, medical
  • general practice
  • primary health care

More in this TOC Section

  • Translating primary care to telehealth: analysis of in-person consultations on diabetes and cardiovascular disease
  • Primary care physicians’ perceptions of social determinants of health recommendations: a qualitative study
  • Variation in laboratory testing for patients with long-term conditions: a longitudinal cohort study in UK primary care
Show more Research

Related Articles

Cited By...

Intended for Healthcare Professionals

@BJGPOpen's Likes on Twitter

 
 

British Journal of General Practice

NAVIGATE

  • Home
  • Latest articles
  • Authors & reviewers
  • Accessibility statement

RCGP

  • British Journal of General Practice
  • BJGP for RCGP members
  • RCGP eLearning
  • InnovAiT Journal
  • Jobs and careers

MY ACCOUNT

  • RCGP members' login
  • Terms and conditions

NEWS AND UPDATES

  • About BJGP Open
  • Alerts
  • RSS feeds
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

AUTHORS & REVIEWERS

  • Submit an article
  • Writing for BJGP Open: research
  • Writing for BJGP Open: practice & policy
  • BJGP Open editorial process & policies
  • BJGP Open ethical guidelines
  • Peer review for BJGP Open

CUSTOMER SERVICES

  • Advertising
  • Open access licence

CONTRIBUTE

  • BJGP Life
  • eLetters
  • Feedback

CONTACT US

BJGP Open Journal Office
RCGP
30 Euston Square
London NW1 2FB
Tel: +44 (0)20 3188 7400
Email: bjgpopen@rcgp.org.uk

BJGP Open is an editorially-independent publication of the Royal College of General Practitioners

© 2023 BJGP Open

Online ISSN: 2398-3795