International Journal of General Medicine (Jan 2022)

Large-Scale Observational Study on the Current Status and Challenges of General Medicine in Japan: Job Description and Required Skills

  • Miyagami T,
  • Yamada T,
  • Kanzawa Y,
  • Kosugi S,
  • Nagasaki K,
  • Nagano H,
  • Shimizu T,
  • Fujibayashi K,
  • Deshpande GA,
  • Naito T

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 15
pp. 975 – 984

Abstract

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Taiju Miyagami,1 Toru Yamada,2 Yohei Kanzawa,3 Shunsuke Kosugi,4 Kazuya Nagasaki,5 Hiroyuki Nagano,6 Taro Shimizu,7 Kazutoshi Fujibayashi,1 Gautam A Deshpande,1 Toshio Naito1 1Department of General Medicine, Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan; 2Department of Family Medicine, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan; 3Department of General Internal Medicine, Akashi Medical Center, Hyogo, Japan; 4Department of General Internal Medicine, Iizuka Hospital, Iizuka, Fukuoka, Japan; 5Department of Internal Medicine, Mito Kyodo General Hospital, Ibaraki, Japan; 6Emergency Medicine and General Internal Medicine, Rakuwakai Marutamachi Hospital, Kyoto, Japan; 7Department of Diagnostic and Generalist Medicine, Dokkyo Medical University Hospital, Tochigi, JapanCorrespondence: Toru YamadaDepartment of Family Medicine, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45 Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 1138519, Japan, Tel +81 3 5803 5229, Fax +81 3 5803 0276, Email [email protected]: To identify the current ambiguous status of general medicine (GM) and assess current problems and weaknesses for further development of GM.Patients and Methods: This study adopted an observational design. GM practitioners were selected from the mailing lists of two primary professional associations for Japanese GM doctors. We included physicians currently working in a GM department, those self-described as GM doctors, and those board-certified in family medicine or general internal medicine. Respondents replied to survey questions about their sociodemographic data, job descriptions, and the requisite skills for practice. GM doctors’ job description and required skills were categorized into “clinical,” “management,” “education,” and “research.” Participants (n = 971) were compared based on job descriptions and important skills in each category by facility type, size, and position.Results: “Clinical” was indicated as the most important category for both job description and important skills, followed by “management,” “education,” and “research.” For job description details, “follow-up outpatient” (35.6%) ranked first for “clinical,” and “resident education” (57.3%) ranked first for “education.” By facility type and size, job description and important skills decreased for clinical and management categories as facility sizes increased; the opposite was true for “education.” “Research” was generally rated low. By position, no significant difference was found in effort or importance given to research.Conclusion: This study is the first survey on GM physicians across Japan. The results show that while Japanese GM physicians focus on and place importance on clinical practice, they are less involved in research and do not consider research skills to be important. The challenge for the future development of GM lies in research.Keywords: general medicine doctors, job description, observational study, research skills

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