The development of research capacity in Europe through research workshops--the EGPRN perspective

The academic development of the domain of General Practice and family medicine (FM) has made notable progress recently, but one should never rest on one’s laurels. Continuing progress requires a strong research base for the discipline, which is still weak both in terms of evidence, with relatively few publications from primary care, and in the limited number of research institutes around the world. Ironically, even though the evidence for primary care in health care systems is rather strong and international political support has been repeatedly promised, the spirit of Alma Ata seems not to have been realized and governments seem to be more supportive of investment in secondary and tertiary care. The key to development as an independent specialist discipline is the development of an independent research base to define the characteristics of the domain, to support clinical work and to inform educational and professional development. Primary care researchers have to go beyond the agenda of public health and secondary care and carry out research into the content and delivery of primary care and into diagnosis in primary care. What does research in general practice/FM entail? The researcher may be a clinician with a special interest, a student who is preparing a dissertation for a University degree or a researcher from a field outside medicine. A research question is developed, and with some advice, an appropriate methodology is selected (such as a questionnaire to fellow clinicians, a study of patient records or an intervention to improve practice). The novice researcher will benefit enormously from expert advice at this stage since errors in research question development or methodology for data collection may make the project untenable at a later stage. Successful completion of the project may result in obtaining a degree, improving practice at a local or regional setting in a specific domain or national or international publication of a paper and the start of a new academic career in parallel or instead of a purely clinical one. Successful publication will make access to research grants and/or career posts, and further publication, more likely.