Edited by Professor Chris Dowrick , University of Liverpool The latest volume in the Routledge Advances in the Medical Humanities series provides a thoughtful and thought provoking new assesssment of a core concept in primary care - the Self. Professor Dowrick described the reasons for writing the book: "Primary care, grounded in the provision of continuous comprehensive person-centred care, is vital to the delivery of effective health care. The central notion of person-centred care, however, relies on often-unexamined concepts of self, or understandings of what it means to be a person. This book explores contemporary pressures on the sense of self for both patient and health professional within a consultation and argues that building new concepts of the self is essential. Combining theoretical perspectives with insights drawn from practice, this volume is suitable for those researching and studying primary healthcare, communication and relationships in healthcare and the medical humanities" This brand new text, written by members of SAPC's SIG on The self in Primary Care is now available for preorder .

There are several of us who are trained psychologists working in primary care departments, across the UK and beyond, however this may not always be apparent. Psychologists run the risk of going unnoticed as a discipline if our roles don’t require us to provide specific psychology input and/or if our job titles don’t identify us as psychologists (e.g. holding generic titles such as research fellow). We need to identify ourselves and the skills we can offer for both ourselves and academic primary care to thrive. We are now setting up a Psychology discipline specific group within PHoCuS for...

The Annual General Meeting of the Society for Academic Primary Care will take place from 12.30 to 13.25 on Thursday 13th July 2017 during the 46th Annual Scientific Meeting at the University of Warwick Here are the papers: Agenda Paper A - draft minutes from AGM 2016 Dublin Paper B - Officers' report Paper Ci - Treasurer's report - coming soon Paper Cii - Accounts year end 31 May 2017 Paper D - Head of Teaching group report (HoTs), Head of Departments group report (HODs) will be given as a verbal report at the AGM Paper E - GP Scholarship Venue: Room 0.12 Ramphal Building Copies of all the...

PhoCus - The group for Primary Healthcare Scientists

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. Each Executive member leads on an area of work for the Society. Details of the current team can be found on the Exec page . We're now inviting expressions of interest in standing for this year's election. You must be a member of SAPC to stand. (You can join us here...

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. Helen died peacefully at home with her family in March 2013 - a date which feels like both yesterday and a lifetime ago. To honour her memory, in 2014 SAPC started the annual Helen Lester Memorial Lecture series. The inspiration for this lecture series came from Helen herself. Helen challenged us all to think more creatively about many things –...

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 Talking to people who have been through the process of applying and being awarded fellowships as well as talking to people who have helped others develop applications may help you to avoid the common pitfalls and demystify the process. There is a list of SAPC...

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). Thirty-two academics and six speakers joined Dr. Sarah Tonkin-Crine (Oxford) and Dr. Ingrid Muller (Southampton) from across the country with...

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.