December 2021 newsletter
ASM 2022 (4th to 6th July @ UCLan)
We have decided to hold our 2022 ASM in person and are grateful to our hosts at UCLan, led by Professor Umesh Chauhan. Please hold the dates (4th – 6th July 2022). Abstract submission is open and the abstract deadline is Monday 14th February.
Regional SAPC meetings
Click here for links to regional meetings in 2022
Three regional meetings took place on-line in 2021:
SAPC SE Madingley 28th January (hosts QMUL)
SAPC SW 18th March (hosts Warwick)
SAPC North 11th November (hosts Keele)
HODs update
An update from HODs will be available here soon.
HOTs update
2021 has been exceptionally busy for the HoTs group. Undergraduate clinical placements in general practice have continued to take place in all medical schools, adapting at pace to the many challenges facing general practice and the NHS. Negotiations towards a new primary care tariff for undergraduate GP placements have 'hotted' (pun intended) up in parallel with separate negotiations as to how primary care tariff will be distributed in a way that ensures that it all reaches primary care. The online video teaching platform “Virtual Primary Care” developed by HoTS and hosted by the Medical Schools Council has flourished. It has had over a million minutes of use by medical students in its first year, and is about to roll out to UK postgraduate GP trainees in 2022. There are also discussions about making this resource available to other countries. In a collaboration between HoTs and RCGP we have published a new digital textbook “Learning General Practice” exploring in depth each of the core themes and principles outlined in “Teaching General Practice”, the curriculum guidance also previously produced by HoTs/RCGP. Discussions proceed around developing these documents and ensuring that the contents are used and reflected in medical school curricula and assessments. We are enormously grateful to all members of the group for their hard work and active collaboration this year.
Alex Harding and Joe Rosenthal (HOTs co-chairs)
WISE GP
Great progress has been made this year with three interns helping take WISE GP forward since January 2021 read more about WISE GP here.
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
After the success of the first virtual meeting for the leads of SAPC SIGs towards the end of 2020 another meeting is planned on 13th January. 2022 We would like to thank all our SIG leads and co-leads for the work they do for their SIG and academic primary care generally.
We welcomed a new SIG: Quality and Safety Improvement in Primary Care and the Conversation analysis SIG has its first meeting today: 10th December.
There is more information about SAPC’s SIGs here. Please get in touch with the leaders if you are interested in joining any of the groups.
Some of our SIGs have already submitted annual reports so please do take a look:
- Compassion
- Digital technologies in primary care
- Mental health: no health without mental health
- Prescribing and medication optimisation
Mentoring
The SAPC mentoring programme continues to support a number of members to help them develop their careers in academic primary care. If you would like to consider applying to be a member please find more details here.
Four SAPC mentors took part in a funded mentor training session (including refresher training) run by ASME. If you are interested in becoming a mentor on the programme please email office@sapc.ac.uk.
Award winners in 2021
Visit the SAPC ASM 2021 prize winners page for conference prizes
The SAPC/RCGP awards for outstanding Early Career Researcher
This is the first year of the remodelled and previously named Yvonne Carter Award which ran in Yvonne’s name for 10 years and has provided a spring board for the new double awards.
The winners this year are:
Dr Samuel Seidu, Leicester, academic GP award
Dr Shoba Dawson, Bristol, HSR/PHoCuS award
Visit the ECR awards page and read the interviews:
Here’s how to apply for these awards in 2022 – closing date is at the very beginning of January - 1st January 2022
Principal Investigator or Principal Medical Educator of the year prize
In 2021 the winner was Prof Kate Walters – congratulations Kate!
This prize has been broadened now includes Principal Medical Educator as well as Principal Investigator. Nominations are invited for the 2022 prize and information can be found here: deadline - 31st March 2022
Career prizes
Two years ago in 2020 SAPC introduced two new prizes: the Doctoral prize and the Medical Student essay prize, 2022 will be the third year of running these prizes.
Doctoral prize
The winner in 2021 was:
Emily McBride, University College London
PhD title: Psychological Impact of Testing Positive for Human Papillomavirus at Cervical Cancer Screening
Highly commended
Andrew Sturrock, University of Sunderland
PhD title: The role of the pharmacist in the promotion of oral health and the interprofessional prevention of medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (2020)
How to apply for the Doctoral prize in 2022 – deadline 31st March 2022
Medical student prize
We received 63 excellent essays form medical schools across the UK.
Winner: Andrew MacFarlane, St Andrews & Dundee Medical School
Click to download the essay
This essay was very moving and captured some of the essence of general practice, whilst reflecting on medical education and the evidence-base under-pinning our work.
Highly commended:
Janvi Karia, University College London
Jennifer Knight, University of Oxford
Hamzah Niaz, St George's University London
How to apply for the Medical student prize in 2022 – deadline 31st March 2022
SAPC/RCGP Elective Prize
Congratulations to .
Congratulations to the winners Ellie Read and David Simmonds who entered a joint application from St George's University London.
Elective project title:
‘Just a GP': A UK medical student filming project highlighting the stigma around wanting to pursue a career as a GP
Can you help?
Would you like to take part in a Delphi survey on electronic safety-netting tools?
A team of researchers at Oxford University and UCL are looking for academic GPs to take part in a Delphi survey to gather expert opinion on what features are most important for electronic safety-netting tools. If you would like more information about the study or would like to register your interest please follow this link. If you have any further questions please contact Dr Claire Friedemann Smith on claire.friedemann@phc.ox.ac.uk.
This brings you up to date with SAPC’s activities throughout the year and all that remains is to wish you a safe and peaceful time during the festive season and very good wishes for 2022.
Carolyn Chew-Graham
Chair SAPC