Education for Primary Care has benefitted greatly from the leadership of Professor Val Wass during her time as Editor in Chief of the journal. Manuscript submissions are climbing, publication downloads are rising and the global nature of education in primary care is increasingly represented in the international mix of publications appearing within the journal.
This edition illustrates this last point beautifully with the publication of a succinct and eloquently written letter from van de Pol and Scherpbier-de Haan highlighting that, in modern healthcare, generalism ought not to be confined to primary care whilst also offering some insights about how this is being tackled in the Netherlands.
Yet, as I get ready to take over the editor’s chair, I reflect also on the important part journals have played and continue to play in the professionalism of healthcare – from the very earliest journals of the 18th and 19th centuries through to the present day. Instead of selfishly protecting new findings for the good of a few individuals, the dissemination of ethically generated and trusted information in peer-reviewed publications for the benefit of wider society continues to set the most honourable professions apart. Combine this with the values and principles good teachers and trainers bring to the education of their learners and it is easy to see why Education for Primary Care, and other journals with similar focus, are of such importance to primary care across the world in the 21st century.
Not that you need any reminding after living through the global upheaval brought to us by the current pandemic, but any experienced clinician or educator will tell you that medicine and education are never truly static. They are fast-moving entities in their own right and where they overlap is an important area for the future of medicine, healthcare professions education and the countries we all live in; and innovation, continuous development and appropriate investment are key.
It is, therefore, with those thoughts in mind that I bring your attention to our leading article for this edition of our journal in which Pope and Dubras carefully examine the need to deliver more education for medical students in a general practice setting. They stress the continued dominance of traditionalism over progress and the much needed cultural shift required if that is to change. They then consider other inhibitors of the ongoing development of primary care education including the essential considerations of funding arrangements and overall capacity. However, despite this leading article having germinated in a UK medical education context, there are many useful thoughts for colleagues in other countries to take away from the article with regard to health professions education in primary care in their own setting, and I sincerely recommend this paper to all of our readers who carry such educational responsibilities.
To conclude for now, I look forward to taking over as Editor in Chief as Professor Wass steps down at the end of this year. She has been an inspirational leader of the editorial team, her positive mark will last long upon the journal and she leaves with our thanks and respect for a job well done. The journal I inherit is moving forwards with energy and purpose and is more important to the global primary care community than perhaps it has ever been if challenges such as those described by Pope and Dubras are to be overcome by innovation, evidence and thoughtful argument. I look forward to helping this journal play its part in shaping that future …