Imperial College London Primary Care

Dr Ahmed Al-Mujil is a Family Medicine Doctor from Saudia Arabia on a one year attachment to the Academic Dept of Primary care at Imperial.   In this blog he gives us a unique insight into Family Medicine training in Saudia Arabia. The Family Medicine Residency Training Program in Saudi Arabia was established in 1994, at which time the first edition of the curriculum was written. Since then, Family Medicine and medical education have undergone significant changes. The curriculum was revised many times, until recent adoption of the Canadian Medical Education Directive for Specialists- CanMeds competencies framework in which the “competent physician” seamlessly integrates the competencies of all seven CanMEDS Roles. (Medical expert, Collaborator, Communicator , Leader , Health Advocate, Scholar and Professional). The duration of training in Family Medicine is four years starting from the first of October every year. All trainees must go through the rotations in their traini...

Bringing together physical and mental health - A new frontier for integrated care By Preety Das For my first rotation on the Imperial GP Specialty Training scheme, I was excited by the opportunity to apply for an Innovative Training Post (ITP). ITPs in this scheme comprise a split post between general practice and a dynamic range of portfolio options. With a keen interest in public health and research, I was fortunate to be selected by my first choice post at the King’s Fund. Originally set up by Dr. Martin Block (Imperial VTS Programme Director), this post provides a unique platform for trainees to understand the wider picture and engage with healthcare policy. I decided to fully immerse myself in a range of projects over the six months that followed, to include: qualitative and quantitative research, departmental presentations, blog writing and event chairing. Launched recently at the Fund, I summarise below key findings from our report, entitled, ‘Bringing together ph...

Imperial College London will be launching a new primary care course in the next academic year, the Integrated Clinical Apprenticeship. Find out more by viewing the video about the course .

Medical schools are encouraged to have some space in the curriculum to allow students to explore some subjects of their choice in greater depth - this is to encourage personal interests and in depth learning. At Imperial College London, final year specialty choice modules give students time to do just this; they run for 3 weeks at a time and repeat continuously from August to February so that as many students as possible have the opportunity to undertake these modules. Dr Ros Herbert, Health Inequalities and Medical Education Course Lead, describes her experience of establishing two new special study modules. “ In the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at Imperial College London, we have recently created two such modules, one in Health Inequalities and one in Medical Education. In the Health Inequalities, module students have had the opportunity to spend time in homeless clinics, refugee clinics, in a Southall surgery, with a prison doctor and in a teenage pregnancy cent...

Many of the staff in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London, along with honorary and affiliated staff, are active uses of Twitter. A list of all the Twitter accounts associated with the department is appended below. Twitter Account Name 1.        Departmental account @Imperial_PCPH 2.        UG Teaching Unit @ICGPteaching 3.        Imperial GP Training Scheme @ImperialGpst 4.        Global eHealth Unit @eHealthImperial 5.        WHO Collaborating Centre @ImperialWHOCC 6.        Azeem Majeed @Azeem_Majeed 7.        International Conference of PCPH @IC_PCPH 8.  ...

It was a great privilege for me to introduce Professor Paul Aylin on the evening of 5 November 2015 on the occasion of his inaugural lecture. Professor Aylin is based in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health (part of the School of Public Health) at Imperial College London and is co-director of the Dr Foster Unit. He trained in Public Health Medicine and spent three years at the Office for National Statistics before coming to Imperial College in 1997. He became a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine in 2001. He is a non-executive director at West London Mental Health NHS Trust. Professor Aylin’s current research focuses on exploring variations in indicators of quality and safety using routinely collected administrative data including: out of hours hospital mortality; continuous monitoring of performance and safety; case-mix adjustment; and cancer care and indicators for late diagnosis. He has been an expert witness to both the Bristol and the Shipman Inquiry, ...

It was a great privilege to have Dr Stephen Weiss as our seminar speaker on Wednesday 28 October 2015. Dr Weiss is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Dr Weiss spoke about his experiences during World War 2 when he served as a first scout in an American infantry rifle squad in Italy, France, and Germany. He landed on D-Day in Southern France. Listed as ‘Missing In Action' in France, he served with the French Resistance and an OSS Operational Group behind enemy lines. For these exploits, he was awarded the French Resistance Medal, two Croix de Guerre, and the American Bronze Star. President Jacques Chirac presented him with the Legion d’ Honneur in 1999. On 22nd June 2007 he was made an Officier de la Leigon d’ Honneur and in July 2013 he was promoted to Commandeur in the Order de la Leigon d’ Honneur. The Order is the highest decoration in France.