A department of personal and family medicine

There has been increasing, worldwide dissatisfaction with the relevance of medical education to health care. Recently, a special task group set up by The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners made a study of how a department of personal and family medicine could participate in the education of the medical student. The task was to present first steps in a research and development programme for education of health personnel to work in and near the family setting. Two academics, two nurse educators, two general practitioners, one specialist surgeon involved in medical education and a fifth-year medical student made up the group. It worked at the task during a six-day live-in teaching and leadership seminar at Leura, New South Wales, in February, 1973.