ABSTRACT
Primary care education is about context, specifically people living in their local home/family/community context. The reality is that most clinical education occurs in large urban teaching hospitals, so most medical education research is set in those environments. The paradox of the predominance of teaching hospitals in medical education is that 21st-century teaching hospitals have a highly selected patient population; generally, individuals who are extremely sick have rare diseases or require specific high-tech interventions. Relationships are central to high-quality primary care and a key feature of primary care education. Many primary care providers do not see themselves as educators, let alone researchers. Participation in online courses often includes specific projects or assignments which encourage and support these collegial discussions in developing education research skills.
