Abstract
Background. The objective was to assess cancer knowledge and perception of skills of general practice (GP) registrars in Australia. This will help design future educational resources. Methods. We surveyed GP registrars in different Australian states. Results. Of the registrars, 86% rated highly their ability in performing cervical smears. Registrars reported examining more patients with breast cancer, lung cancer, or melanoma than rectal cancer, cancer of mouth/tongue, or lymphoma. More registrars rated the quality of their training as reasonable or better in assisting patients to stop smoking or modify alcohol intake than in cancer-related tasks. One third rated their teaching on management of curable/incurable cancer and care of the dying as poor and/or very poor, and over half had never examined prostate or rectal cancers. Conclusions. GP registrars generally have good knowledge of cancer. Their exposure to cases of cancer is low, and it is of concern that many have never examined common tumors in our community. J Cancer Educ. 2007;22:259–265.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank The Cancer Council New South Wales (TCCN) for helping with the costs of the survey and are grateful to the hospitals that facilitated participation of their medical officers. Funding kindly was provided by TCCN for printing and postage. Also we thank General Practice Education Australia and TCCN for administering the survey jointly and The Collaboration for Cancer Outcomes Research and Evaluation for data management and analysis. We thank the Consumer Advisor, Ms Emma Sayers, for her contribution to this study.
Notes
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