Life has interesting ways of derailing advance planning! Midyear this journal lies at a watershed. It is with great sadness that I face the loss of our two outstanding Deputy Editors, Paul Sackin and Ron MacVicar, this month. Simultaneously, with delight and anticipation, I can welcome three new deputy editors, appointed from a very competitive international field. They are poised to take up the reigns and move us robustly forward.
Paul Sackin has been with the journal since its inception and has worked tirelessly and most effectively over many years to establish and maintain its ongoing trajectory. His astuteness, wisdom and superb attention to detail have been invaluable. He has always delivered with such calm humility and complete reliability. We owe much to him. He leaves a good small stock of his popular Teaching Exchange articles on line, which he has nurtured and edited most competently, and have yet to reach the hardcopy issues. I shall miss his invaluable institutional memory and extraordinarily reliable support. At the same time, very reluctantly because of family illness, Ronald MacVicar has decided to reduce his commitment and resign as deputy editor. Ron has brought creativity and innovation to the role. He developed the Green Review and the International series and worked tirelessly last year to produce the very successful special WONCA issue. He will fortunately retain a position on the editorial board where his expertise, knowledge and wise, reflective views will, I feel sure, continue to offer an invaluable resource.
We welcome three new deputy editors. I am grateful to Taylor & Francis for agreeing to support the appointment of a third international one to open more global views from the other side of the world.
Dr. David Cunningham is an active well established Scottish General Practitioner. He has held a partnership in the same practice since 1989 and offers impressively wide experience as a GP trainer, MRCGP examiner, GP appraiser and Associate Adviser for continuing professional development (CPD). Since 2013 he has worked as Assistant Director of GP Education (CPD) for NHS Education for Scotland and as the research lead for Practice-Based Small Group Learning. He investigated inter-professional and team-based learning in primary health care for his PhD, has a strong track record of education research and wide interests which include a Masters of Philosophy degree in Law and Ethics and a diploma in English Literature.
Dr. Sam Scallan has been a member of the Editorial Board for the past year. She offers to the journal strong experience in UK postgraduate primary education research and teaching. She holds two part-time posts: the first as Research Lead for Primary Care Education in Wessex, based at the GP Education Unit, University Hospitals Southampton, and the second as Programme Lead for the MA Medical Education and Convenor of the Centre for Medical Education at the University of Winchester. Sam’s past studies in linguistics and her PhD, which examined education policy-making, alongside her more recent educational research activities, will add breadth to the perspective of the board as it moves forward.
Professor Ian Wilson offers wide experience as an Australian general practitioner who has practised in the armed services, inner city, suburban and, currently, rural practice. He has accrued, over an interesting career trajectory, expertise in both postgraduate and undergraduatemedical education. He worked initially with The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners on training programmes, and then as senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide. Subsequently he moved into undergraduate training at the University of Western Sydney and then at the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong where he was Dean of Medicine from 2014 to 2016. His PhD focused on primary care mental health. More recent research has centred on medical education. Ian’s current research interests are student selection, professionalism and professional identity formation.
Our aim is to expand our views to embrace more strongly the experience of educating for Primary Care in the ‘global south’. We are also delighted to have appointed Dr. Harish Thampy, an outstanding young GP who completed his training in 2012 on one of the few NIHR GP Academic Fellow training pathways focusing on medical education. He currently holds a senior clinical lecturer post in the University of Manchester where he is undertaking a PhD and developing both undergraduate and postgraduate primary care education. He will bring to the board the invaluable view point of a relatively young GP.
I very much look forward to working with the new team, harnessing their innovative ideas and moving the journal forward to face the challenge of creating a primary care workforce appropriate to the demands of twenty-first century health care.
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