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The Times, Are They A-Changin'?

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COMMENTARY OF TE ION ACH CT ER SE S The times, are they a-changin’? Celebrating Paul Rainsberry PhD Louise Nasmith MD CM MEd CCFP FCFP W. Wayne Weston MD CCFP FCFP Family Medicine Nick Busing MD CCFP FCFP(LM) Nancy Fowler MD CCFP FCFP James Goertzen MD MClSc CCFP FCFP Teaching SINC 78 Brent Kvern MD CCFP FCFP David Tannenbaum MD CCFP FCFP Ivy F. Oandasan MD CCFP MHSc FCFP E 19 his year we celebrate an important anniversary. Forty the Canadian Medical Association to provide a home, the years ago, the College of Family Physicians of Canada College of General Practice of Canada, to support and nur- (CFPC) established the Section of Teachers of Family ture general practice. They saw that training standards and TMedicine (SOT) as a national home for family medicine Certification were needed to compete for new practitioners teachers and the academic community. Anniversaries are and establish the discipline as having an expert and unique an opportune time to remember past accomplishments role. The struggle was long and hard, but within 2 decades and to look to the challenges of the future. the College, now the CFPC, conducted its first Certification By many measures family medicine is in good shape in examination and set standards for training that sup- Canada. Interest in family medicine residency has been high ported family medicine residencies in all medical schools in recent years. More than half of all physicians in Canada in Canada. With a base in the medical schools, academic are family physicians, and Canada is sought out for advice by leaders like Ian McWhinney were attracted to Canada. They others trying to advance family medicine in their countries. started building the academic and research base for what Critical to this success are the many family physicians com- would ultimately become the specialty of family medicine. mitting time and energy to teaching in their practices, pro- The CFPC was innovative in addressing the challenge viding lectures and seminars, participating in research, and of defining family medicine as a specialty with expertise publishing. Strong academic departments of family medicine in generalism. In the 1960s and 1970s, the College devel- exist in every medical school in Canada, and family physi- oped behavioural educational objectives to guide residency cians have taken up many leadership roles including medi- training and required a commitment to continuing profes- cal school deans. Family medicine researchers are active in sional education in order to be a member of the discipline. urban academic centres and in rural and remote communi- It was first to introduce objective structured clinical exami- ties. We should be proud of these achievements and cele- nations and written simulations to the Certification process. brate them. But anniversaries are also a time to reflect. These innovations were ahead of their time and, in some cases, matched by other organizations only decades later. Looking back The key role of family medicine teachers and precep- Earlier this year an article in CMAJ1 reviewed the status tors, along with the growth of the family medicine academic of family medicine in Canada and the world. The good community, led to the establishment of the SOT to provide a news was that in Canada and many other jurisdictions, home for the academic members of the new discipline and family medicine is recognized as a specialty, but the bad to be a resource to the CFPC for educational and academic news was that family physicians are still not recognized as issues. For its first 25 years, the SOT held an annual con- “experts” and are still seen by the public and many other ference, bringing together teachers from across the coun- specialists as merely “gatekeepers” referring patients. try to share ideas and skills and build a consistent, unified This attitude is not new. In 1929, the Royal College of approach to teaching the discipline. This was later com- Physicians and Surgeons of Canada was founded to pro- bined with the CFPC’s annual conference, Family Medicine vide a home and be a standard-setting body for emerging Forum. The SOT also shared challenges and provided feed- medical specialties. This was done in recognition of a con- back to the CFPC on Certification and accreditation. Over siderable change in medical practice, from most physicians the years the SOT has built on earlier innovations and origi- having similar training and functioning as generalists to nated curriculum initiatives leading to development of the more specialized practice. The exponential growth of medi- 4 principles of family medicine, the Triple C Competency- cal knowledge and technology supported this shift, and based Curriculum, and CanMEDS–Family Medicine. It has general practice was essentially abandoned. It was increas- also provided support for changes in resident evaluation, ingly difficult to attract medical students to general practice. including introduction of qualitative assessment tools. Medical school faculty were dominated by the new special- There has also been an effort by the CFPC and SOT to ists who became role models for graduates who themselves protect and promote the scope of family practice and the increasingly sought discipline-specific training. There were place of areas of special interest or added competence. This few general practitioners with faculty appointments and lit- was and is meant to support the generalist foundation of tle recognition of the unique nature of general practice as a the discipline and family physicians who deliver care in discipline. It was simply the old way of doing things. important clinical areas to communities underserved by Seeing the threat to the existence of general practice, specialist colleagues. However, despite the hard work of the leaders like W. Victor Johnston and Murray Stalker lobbied past half century to protect general practice and enhance its 798 Canadian Family Physician | Le Médecin de famille canadien } Vol 64: NOVEMBER | NOVEMBRE 2018 The times, are they a-changin’? COMMENTARY profile as equivalent to any specialty, important challenges Royal Australian College of General Practitioners tried: remain. In a recent article in Canadian Family Physician, a I’m not just a GP. I’m your specialist in life. The American family medicine resident challenged the College’s priorities Academy of Family Physicians tried: Family physicians: the and questioned the notion of generalism as the basis of the doctors that specialize in you. These slogans point at the fun- discipline. Lerner observed that many students enter fam- damental concept of generalism and define the care unique ily medicine residency to prepare for a career in a focused to the discipline, but they do not capture the perspectives, area of practice and have no interest in generalism. He talents, or approaches to care that set family medicine apart. challenged the CFPC to get its act together about whether In his 1996 William Pickles Lecture,4 McWhinney defined it supports focused practice or will insist only on preparing the discipline not as a set of clinical skills but by family students and residents to be expert generalists. physicians’ perspectives and ways of thinking. McWhinney was not so interested in distinguishing family medicine Every year, more and more medical students match from other specialties as in moving medical practice in new to family medicine with the intention of pursuing a directions by capturing what general practice brings to care focused practice. If the CFPC is going to commit to gen- delivery, including more abstract approaches to disease eralism, it needs to do so now. Physicians with focused management and knowledge of self and how that might aid practices will continue to grow, especially as more or hinder care. These are not on the usual list of competen- Certificates of Added Competence are approved. If the cies to be acquired and assessed but reflect the context in CFPC waits long enough, eventually, it will be the gener- which learning occurs and the teacher-student relationship. alists who seem out of place.2 Similar sentiments are found in Iona Heath’s 2011 Harveian Oration, in which she grounds the ultimate purpose of med- This sounds eerily reminiscent of 1929. One can argue icine and general practice in the doctor-patient relationship. with Lerner about the mission of residency and whether the College is clear in its goals, but the troubling part is that The doctor, while using the generalisations of biomedical he seems disconnected from the ideas that founded the science, has a constant responsibility to refocus on the College and form the foundation of the discipline. In 1954 individual, the detail of their story and the meaning they when the College was founded, generalism and general attach to it .… [W]e teach communication and consultation practice were in decline and not understood or appreci- skills to medical students and young doctors. My worry is ated by the public or the profession at large. Reviving the that we are teaching these as techniques to be used instru- discipline was successful to some extent, but having gen- mentally, making the relationship between doctor and eral practice and family medicine recognized and valued as patients a means to an end rather than an end in itself.5 a specialty continues to be a challenge 60 years later. The issue is how to define and communicate to our new recruits Heath’s lecture echoes McWhinney’s challenge and is rel- and to others what it means to be an expert generalist. evant today. But the world has changed dramatically since 1996. How do we define the challenges in the current con- Looking ahead text and move the discipline forward? As we focus more on Much has changed since the 1950s, and the principles that core competencies and examination and workplace-based have guided the discipline might need to be adapted.
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