Resident and early-career family physicians’ focused practice choices in Canada: a qualitative study (7 March 2022)

Summary

Focused practice is an approach to primary care where a family doctor or GP chooses one or more specific clinical areas as a major part-time or full-time component of their practice. In recent years, there has been a global increase in focused practice and a decline in offering a comprehensive scope of practice in primary care. This Canadian study in the British Journal of General Practice looked at factors influencing family doctors' decisions to work in focused practice.

The authors of the study concluded that:

• both early-career and resident family doctors unanimously saw focused practice as a way to avoid the burnout or exhaustion they associated with comprehensive practice in the current structure of the healthcare system.
• more research is needed to understand the implications of family physician choices of focused practice within the physician workforce.