GPs in hiding
So today I had a meeting with Liz the Living Librarian where we were trying to invite academic GPs to join the living library. And here's the thing: I know a LOT of GPs. I've spent a lot of time at conferences over the last 15 years, especially when I was the Senior Medical Advisor for GP training at GPET. And I thought I'd start with the easy lot: those with University affiliations. I thought they would have expertise in curating their bios and listing their achievements. So I thought their websites might trigger my flagging memory. Hmmm, maybe not.
It has taken us about 3 hours to find about 140 of them, using a combination of university websites, Google Scholar, Researchgate, Linkedin, Orcid, and just plain Google. I know we've missed a lot. But here's what we found.
Most University websites are extremely hard to search. One Uni responded to our query around General Practice by giving us a list of pages relating to Law (which apparently has a general practice stream). Another gave me vets. They both have a General Practice Department. Another Uni with a GP Department responded to a General Practice search by responding with "no results found". In frustration at another University (who I knew had an exceptional GP Department somewhere), I worked backwards from the Professor's profile and found some names, and dredged up others from his papers. One Uni really relied on my memory: the only way to find GPs was to go through an alphabetical list of all academic staff in the University, find the ones with "dr" in the title, and take a stab. Most academics, of course, are PhDs, so that didn't filter many out. My memory is not that great, but we had a good go.
Very few GP academics confessed to being a GP in their academic profile. Fortunately, I knew enough names to hunt outside of the Uni pages to confirm they are GPs, but it made me think. If I can't find you, no wonder meda outlets use the same GPs over and over. I know we are primary care researchers, but on our Uni profiles, why don't we indicate our GPness? Is it somehow unconsciously not OK to do so? Or actively discouraged? I had no trouble finding pathologists, but GPs were keeping very, very quiet.
It was reassuring that Liz tells me I had something to say about at least 120 of them, including "she's the one with the Golden Retriever", "they’re bilingual in Japanese", or even "she's just generally awesome". I had been wondering if this idea of a Living Library was necessary in this curated age of information. Now I know it is. Because our living books are buried deeply underground. And that's just the academics. About to tackle RTO medical educators tomorrow, and then GP clinicians/supervisors/registrars of the year. And even then, I reckon we won't find some extraordinary GPs who work as grassroots experts in their quiet unassuming way. So please, nominate people for us if you want this person to teach your successors, speak for you at a conference or media event, or mentor a colleague. Because I'm absolutely sure I am missing a lot of you. Which, frankly, is a huge shame. And If you're an academic, tell us who you are on your bio. It's important to our profession.
Dr. Louise Stone,
Proud GP
Call to action
The GP Living Library aims to make GPs visible, and to make experts accessible. There are a few ways you can help us make it easy for people to find a GP:
Try to push to include “GP” in your academic bio, or any of your online presences
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Nominate yourself or a GP you know to fill in our form using the button below! Either fill in the form yourself, send the form to your nominee, or email us at gplivinglibrary@gmail.com so that we can invite them to join our other human books.