General Practice Today explores the GP consultation in the context of external 'stressors' and 'helpers' that doctors use to make best clinical decisions. Over the last 30 years there has been a move towards mandatory training on legal aspects, risk scores and guidance. Additionally, with widespread access to IT there has been a huge growth in the information doctors need to know and manage. Yet today’s GP has never been more time-poor or under so much pressure. All these outside considerations can seem challenging and remote for the doctor sat with their patient; yet in today’s reality they have never been more important. This book offers insight into the practical impact and importance of these external factors. It offers advice on everything from law, technology and time management to mental health issues, ethics, religion and culture, exploring how to determine which issues are relevant to each individual consultation. Packing each chapter with realistic examples, author Jane Wilcock draws on her own extensive experience to help GPs make considered, contextual decisions that enhance the health and well-being of their patients. This book is essential reading for any General Practitioner, allied health care practitioner or trainee preparing to practice in our complex modern world.

This is a text book for all doctors but especially GPs, appraisers and registrars. It is written by a 40 year plus front line NHS doctor who for most of his career worked twice to three times the current doctors’ Working Time Directive limited week. Chris Heath has been a Paediatric Lecturer in a teaching hospital, an Anaesthetist, various junior specialists and a GP over 30 years in 3 different practices. He has been a GP Trainer and Appraiser and has seen politics and political correctness harm patients’ interests constantly over the last half of his career. From the way it selects young doctors to the way they are educated and assessed, the best interests of the patient are largely ignored. This is a text book but it also contains home truths, insights and a warts and all appraisal of how to be a good doctor as well as an unbiased assessment of what is wrong with today’s NHS. It also explains why today’s politicians, medical schools and doctors will resist the changes that are needed to put the patients’ needs first again.

A comprehensive guide to this emerging field, fully updated to cover clinical, policy, and practical issues with a user-centred approach.

General Practice Cases at a Glance is a workbook of clinical scenarios, ideal for those working in general practice, on their GP rotations, or looking to improve their history-taking, diagnostic and management planning skills. Written by practising teaching GPs, it provides an accessible overview of the richness and complexity of general practice. With 50 engaging consultations, covering all age ranges and a broad spread of clinical areas, each symptom-based chapter begins with the clinical presentation of a patient, before going on to uncover the full history and examination. As you work through each true-to-life case, there are red flag symptoms, useful charts and tables, and further resources to deepen your knowledge. General Practice Cases at a Glance: Is suitable for clinical students, Foundation doctors, and those preparing for the MRCGP's CSA Includes 50 case scenarios from across the medical spectrum, from mental health and paediatrics to musculoskeletal and ENT medicine Is comprehensively illustrated Features current clinical guidelines, and charts and tables to accompany each case Is the companion volume to General Practice at a Glance, ISBN 978-0-470-65551-1, (Awarded First Prize in the Primary health care category at the 2013 BMA Medical Book Awards) but is also a stand-alone resource

Higher Professional Education for General Practitioners is a practical guide on the best ways to plan educational and vocational training needs throughout professional practice. It clearly outlines the underlying issues surrounding the introduction of higher professional education (HPE) enabling newly qualified professionals to focus on areas that they feel less competent in, and areas that require additional training. In an easy-to-read format it provides all the necessary information to assist readers undertaking HPE, and for all those setting up educational programmes for newly qualified GPs in the first year after their vocational training scheme.

This text examines the potential of nurses to provide a first-point-of-contact consultation service as an alternative to going to see the doctor. It analyzes the different nurse practitioners models around the world and presents a proposal for the UK. Using research material to describe the impact of this kind of nurse practitioners on patients, doctors and other nurses, the book proposes practical steps through which this model can be implemented and considers the professional implications for doctors and nurses.

Awarded First Prize, in the Primary health care category, at the 2013 BMA Medical Book Awards. Following the familiar, easy-to-use at a Glance format, this brand new title provides a highly illustrated introduction to the full range of essential primary care presentations, grouped by system, so you’ll know exactly where to find the information you need, and be perfectly equipped to make the most of your GP attachment. General Practice at a Glance: Is comprehensively illustrated throughout with over 60 full-page colour illustrations Takes a symptoms-based approach which mirrors the general practice curriculum Offers ‘one-stop’ coverage of musculoskeletal, circulatory, respiratory, nervous, reproductive, urinary, endocrine and digestive presentations Highlights the interrelations between primary and secondary care Includes sample questions to ask during history taking and examination Features ‘red flags’ to highlight symptoms or signs which must not be missed This accessible introduction and revision aid will help all medical students and junior doctors develop an understanding of the nature and structure of primary care, and hit the ground running on the general practice attachment.

This collection of stories from two practising GPs describes the reality of working within a failing and highly bureaucratic system, where there is a balancing act: regulation versus relationships; autonomy versus standard practice; algorithm versus individual attention. We aren’t suggesting a return to a ‘better’ time. We don’t object to being bureaucrats, embedded within and accountable to the systems we are in. But we do want to consider how and with what the gap left by the old-fashioned GP has been filled. We use stories based on our experience to describe the effect of different facets of bureaucracy on our ability to maintain a nuanced, individualised approach to each patient and encounter; and to question the prominence and effect of protocol. We are interested in the way professional relationships are influenced by protocol: between and within organisations; and most importantly with patients/clients/service users.. We are accustomed nowadays to automated telephone lines, chatbots, website FAQs- the frustration of being unable to connect with another human being who will listen to our particular question and give us something other than a generic answer. The same issues that are facing society at large have changed the way in which we work as GPs and the care we give.

Now in its fifth edition, this best-selling text is essential reading for all GPs particularly GP trainees and their trainers. Now in its fifth edition, this best-selling text is essential reading for all GPs particularly GP trainees and their trainers. For each of the 'hot topics' covered the reader is presented with a summary of articles as published recently in the major General Practice journals. A standard presentation is used to facilitate rapid access, and the book will not only bring the reader up-to-date with current topics but will also provide an overview of the history and development of the subject. All topics include full references to the original journal articles. The essential text for MRCGP candidates.