Training of Family Physicians

Number: LLP-PdV-TOI-2007-TR-040

Objective:

Training of Family Physicians - Towards Development of the European Network of Continuing and Postgraduate Education for Family Physicians. These are the objectives of the project:

• Achievement of better quality of health care provided by family physicians through introduction of innovative methods and instructional tools and through improvement of education system of family physicians.
• Strengthening the role of family physicians in primary care settings through continuous quality improvement.
• Adaptation of the professional environment of family physicians and their working places to the terms of functioning of physicians of similar specialisation in the EU countries.
• Creation an international platform for information exchange between family physicians.

Desired Results:

Turkey is a big country with a population of more than 70 million. There are 50 medical faculties in Turkey. There has not been a consensus on the teaching of family medicine in the faculties. In addition the family medicine vocational training has some challenges. The vocational training program is still mostly based upon hospitals. The reason of this is that primary care settings are not ready for training family medicine in addition to lack of trainers in family practice. Recently, in accordance with the health reforms the Turkish Ministry of Health has been implementing an educational program in transition period for practising physicians working in primary care to become family doctors. This program does not have an approach specific for family medicine and needs a large number of trainers in family practice as well.

At all levels of teaching in family medicine, having qualified trainers and providing them teaching programs for developing themselves are fundamental. The original contribution of this project will be the utilisation of the teaching material of the previous project.

Innovation of the project appears in undertaking the activities to develop of a uniform system of postgraduate education of family physicians in different countries in terms of the methods and tools of teaching.

An important step in European activities meant for the improvement of quality of post-graduate training for family doctors will be a model of distance learning in family practice developed during the project, and its popularization.

By reviewing all methods used and all courses and workshops performed in Europe till now, a uniform curriculum for teaching patient centred consultation will be developed together with innovative methods and teaching tools helpful for family doctors' practice. With internet based distance learning modules it is intended to facilitate the continuing education of family physicians and to support the education and the teaching the teachers activities available at all.

Partners:

• ESTA, TR
• Deutsch-Türkische Mediziner Gesellschaft, DE
• ESTA, DE
• College of Family Physicians, PL
• National Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, RO
• Adnan Menderes Universitiy, TR
• Turkish Association of Family Physicans, Izmir, TR