A first for WONCA: Open online access to a WONCA publication
We are delighted to announce a first, but hopefully by no means the last, success in achieving open online access to our publication Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Curriculum: Preparing medical students to work in evolving health care systems.
The book was conceived and developed within the WONCA Working Party on Education. The prime aim was to address the need expressed by many members, especially in low and middle income countries (LMICs), to increase medical student access to family medicine doctors and primary care settings. This was inspired by growing recognition that greater exposure to family medicine better prepared all students for future health care and encouraged them to consider family medicine as a career.
L-R: Prof Val Wass OBE, Prof Nagwa Nashat Hegazy (current Chair of the WONCA Working Party on Education) and Victor Ng, MD at the launch of the book during the WONCA World Conference in Sydney, 2023.
Yet the wide global disparity in family medicine delivery was creating issues. Much of the published evidence was based on Western health care models and medical education systems and was not transferable to LMIC settings. Politically, the dominance of secondary care within medical schools was also proving challenging to overcome.
So we decided to take up the challenge. We felt we should embrace, rather than ignore, the wisdom of family medicine educators across all WONCA regions, recognising that many in LMIC contexts had valuable experience to offer. By ensuring each chapter was co-edited to share high and low to middle income perspectives, evidence and case studies, this book offers a valuable platform for change. Through 33 chapters with 69 contributors, a useful guide was published in 2023 to serve our members.
The final challenge lay in addressing inequities in access for those with low incomes or lacking institutional access. Working with our publisher Taylor & Francis, we have now been able to publish this valuable contribution from our WONCA members open access.
With gratitude
WONCA is grateful to the Global Engagement Network for Primary Health Care (GEN-PHC) at the University of Minnesota, and in particular to its Director, Dr Esther Johnston, whose support has made it possible to publish this book open access, so that it is now freely available to family medicine educators and students around the world.
This is the first time a WONCA book has been made openly available in this way. We hope it will be the first of many, and we thank GEN-PHC or helping WONCA share its academic work with all who need it, wherever they are.
The importance of changing medical education to produce the appropriate skill mix for future health care is crucial. This WONCA book contributes to shifting the focus in undergraduate education to ensure all future doctors understand the balance between generalism and specialism.
The open access edition is available to read in full, free of charge, on the Taylor & Francis website: Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Curriculum.
Val Wass OBE
Co-editor of Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Cirriculum
Further information
Browse the full WONCA Family Medicine book series. WONCA Direct members receive a 20% discount on titles in the series.
Find out how to become a WONCA Direct member.
Read the 2023 announcement of the book's launch at the WONCA World Conference in Sydney.
Read the book open access on the Taylor & Francis website.