Bridging the gap between theory and practice in general medicine

Lisa Voggenberger, Erika Zelko

Background:

Teaching medical students should not be solely based on theoretic concepts but should incorporate a skill-set that is relevant to real-life situations. To our knowledge, there have been no studies done so far to generate an overview of the of typical patient profiles in general practitioner (GP) practices in Austria.

Research questions:

We aim to understand everyday practice better to then include current-status and practice-oriented findings into the curriculum for current and future medical students of the Johannes Keppler University (JKU) of Linz, Upper Austria.

Method:

We created an online survey that invites all GPs in Upper Austria (1) to report on equipment and demographics of their practices, and (2) to retrospectively describe up to 100 patient encounters (reason for doctor visit, diagnoses, medical interventions, etc.) they had during the second week of October 2022.

Results:

Conclusions:

Overall, the Institute for General Medicine of the JKU Linz is determined to create a bridge between theory and practice of general medicine by investigating the range of functions of GPs in Upper Austria and letting the findings guide the direction of the academic education of future physicians.

Points for discussion: