ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on education and professional development in family medicine, and will seek to answer three primary questions: What is family medicine education and training?, Why is family medicine education and training different from other types of medical education?, and How should family medicine education and training be implemented?. It covers a variety of issues in the education of family doctors, including basic undergraduate medical education; postgraduate medical education and vocational training; and continuing professional development. The chapter aims to place family medicine and primary care education in the context of both complete medical education and health delivery systems, describes the content and structure for high-quality training in family medicine, and outlines critical issues in developing a system-wide approach to primary care medical education. Medical schools both shape the health system and are shaped by it. A growing movement in medical education, accelerated in the last decade, has involved an evolution from traditional knowledge-based academic instruction to competency-based training.
