AUSTRIA: GENERAL PRACTICE/FAMILY MEDICINE AS A SPECIALTY
In line with the international recommendations and the modular curriculum at Austria's medical universities (2002/03), Austria's health care reform states to strengthen primary health care. As Austrian GPs and GP trainers, we are convinced that top primary health care and service provision requires well trained medical doctors, specialized in their field. Referring to the UEMO Declaration on specific training in GP/FM in Europe, ‘a minimum of half of the training time should be spent in the general practice environment with family physicians as lead teachers and trainers.’ Therefore, the Austrian Society of GP/FM, having been invited to submit an updated training programme to meet these requirements, submitted a concept of a GP training programme adding 18 months of GP teaching practice to the (traditional) three years’ hospital based rotation programme.
Along with the health care reform, this concept was discussed until— finally—the reform has been approved in parliament for 2014. Yet, the stakeholders involved could not agree on how to fund teaching practices and family doctors in training (€15 million per year). As a result, the GP/FM training programme has been extended to five years hospital rotation, with six months in an out-patient department—and no GP/FM speciality training in GP/FM teaching practices. This is the situation, and the reason for the outcry of JAMÖ (Young Austrian GPs) and their demonstration at the Wonca World Conference in Prague in June 2013.
As Austrian members of EURACT and Young Austrian GPs, we hope to get support by our international colleagues to convince the stakeholders to re-think their decision by comparing existing training programmes in other countries. EURACT responded quickly by the ‘Letter of Appeal’ that was sent to the stakeholders responsible in Austria. There will be general elections in Austria in October 2013, and there is some hope that ‘Specialist in GP/FM’ and funding of their ‘GP/FM teaching practices’ might be an item on the agenda, once more.