GP SCHOLARSHIP
Championing and cultivating the intellectual expertise at the heart of the profession of General Practice
SAPC, working in partnership with the RCGP, is leading work to raise the profile of, capacity for, and impact of clinical scholarship across the Primary Care community.
We need strong Academic Primary Care, now more than ever, if we are to achieve the effective, efficient, equitable health care that the best models of primary care can deliver. The strength of our discipline comes from bringing together Primary Care clinicians, including GPs, and Primary Health Care Scientists in a shared goal of championing excellence in primary care scholarship driving improvements in primary care provision.
What do we mean by scholarship?
Scholarship refers to both the intellectual capacity of individual GPs (Every GP a Scholar) and the collective professional wisdom.
Our view of scholarship recognises the full range of intellectual tasks described by Boyer . Namely, Discovery (including original research); Integration (information synthesis across discipline/topics/time); Application (discovering ways to use knowledge to solve problems); and Inspiration (teaching). Scholarship is defined by tasks and actions not by job title or contractual status.
Scholarship is a necessary part of professional excellence: both in clinical consultation as well as the extended roles of GPs including practice development and organisation, education, innovation, leadership, research.
Collective professional wisdom is an integral part of Academic Primary Care: the distinct body of work and knowledge that defines, develops and delivers the person-centred model/system of healthcare that is primary care.
SAPC Executive - Elections 2017
In 2017, we will be holding an election for one place on SAPC Executive, to serve from July 2017-2020.
The Executive team lead the work of SAPC to raise the profile of Academic Primary Care, build a vibrant workforce by helping people Get In and Get On in APC, and enhance the impact of our work through supporting collaborations.
The 2016 Helen Lester Memorial Lecture: Suffering and Hope
Professor Helen Lester was secretary to SAPC from 2004-2010 and Chair from 2010-2013. She was an inspirational GP and academic who made a difference to the lives of many people. Helen was truly one of the iconic figures of academic general practice.
Supporting General Practice careers
Professor Val Wass led a recent task force review to examine what could be done to promote GP careers within medical schools. Academic Primary Care, and the Society for Academic Primary Care, are recognised to play a key role in this agenda. This article outlines the key recommendations from the report and the work that SAPC is doing, in conjunctin with partners, to address them.
Applying for a fellowship?
Fellowships are one route to developing a research portfolio towards becoming a leader in health research. They can be a useful way of funding people’s time, research projects and training development. Fellowships are available from a range of funders to support people at different points in their research path.
Fellowship support
First workshop of the Behaviour Change SIG
The Behaviour Change Special Interest group held their first network and training day in October 2016 with a workshop focused on the Person-Based Approach to developing behaviour change interventions in primary care. The workshop was kindly hosted by the University of Southampton with support from the Centre for Clinical and Community Applications of Health Psychology (CCCAHP) and the Academic Unit of Primary Care and Population Sciences (PCPS).
SAPC ASM 2016 highlights and video interviews
The premier primary care research meeting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Society of Academic Primary Care (SAPC) meeting, was hosted by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
Here is a round up of some of the talks that caught Domhnall's attention.
Building an Academic Primary Care Publishing Community
Outlines SAPC commitment to building a community of primary care publishers - optimising the impact of the work we do through collaboration, offering career development opportunities to the APC community, and offering SAPC members benefits eg through reduced open access publishing fees. We start our new round of affiliations with a new partnership with the Journal of Comorbidity
Mentorship feedback - mentees
Quotes from mentees of their experience of the SAPC mentorship programme
"It has been invaluable for me – I’ve had a good relationship with my mentor who has understood my needs well. I’ve been through a lot of changes in the past 2 years- having a baby and changing employer, and my mentor’s support has been crucial."
***