General practice

Making a difference to the future of healthcare

We educate doctors in quality general practice and primary health care principles and play a lead role in the development of international classification systems for general practice.

Study options

The Specialty of General Practice is involved in a range of initiatives in medical education across the MD program, GP registrar training and postgraduate coursework and research.

Doctor of Medicine

The Specialty of General Practice is a specialty unit of the Sydney Medical School. This specialty delivers the Community Specialty Block – students enrolled in the MD program undertake this in their third year of study.

Students are introduced to health care in the community in the context of general practice, as well as geriatric medicine, rehabilitation medicine and sexual health medicine, in both rural and urban environments.

Our program will equip you with the knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities crucial to community-based medical practice. We pay particular attention to the knowledge, skills and cultural sensitivities are appropriate to working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and with people from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds.

The specialty is decentralised and students are allocated to one of the urban clinical schools (Central at Mackie Building, Northern at Hornsby Hospital or Western at Westmead Hospital). You can undertake your Community Block in both urban and rural settings. You can also choose a rural focus and undertake the block at one of our remote sites: Dubbo, Orange, Bathurst, Broken Hill or Lismore.

Learn more about the Doctor of Medicine at the Sydney Medical School.

Elective placements

Please refer to our elective placements page.

Postgraduate coursework

Designed for working professionals, our courses in general practice and primary health care are largely delivered online, adopting a case-based approach that allows flexible integration of your studies with your professional and personal life.

Our course options:

*Requires a medical degree

For more information contact Dr Christopher Ganora

Postgraduate research

We are at the forefront of general practice and primary care research in Australia, and have considerable experience in supporting academic GP registrars. Registrars are supervised and supported by senior academic staff to carry out their own research project from formulating a research question, designing a study and collecting data, through to analysis and publication.

Alternatively, registrars may become involved in existing research projects. In addition, registrars have the opportunity and will be supported to contribute to teaching in the University of Sydney MD graduate entry medical program including a range of teaching situations, involvement in curriculum and assessment development and medical education scholarship.

The Specialty of General Practice has a central hub and is also located across four sites, each associated with a clinical school of the University.

Research options include:

Learn more about postgraduate research in the Faculty of Medicine and Health.

Professional development and short courses

Professional development and short courses in general practice are offered through the Sydney Medical School.

For more information on upcomig courses view our medicine short courses section.

Our research

The Specialty of General Practice at the University of Sydney is at the forefront of general practice and primary care research in Australia, and has considerable experience in supporting academic GP registrars.

Senior academic staff supervise and support registrars to carry out their own research project – from formulating a research question, designing a study and collecting data, through to analysis and publication. Alternatively, registrars may become involved in existing research projects.

Registrars are also supported to contribute to teaching in the University of Sydney MD graduate entry medical program in a range of situations, and are invited to get involved in curriculum and assessment development and medical education scholarship.

The Specialty of General Practice has a central hub and is also located across four sites, each associated with a clinical school of the University.

Locations

Research in the Specialty of General Practice is carried out at the following University locations:

Specialty of General Practice at the University of Sydney, Camperdown
Central Clinical School
Westmead Clinical School
Northern Clinical School
Rural clinical schools at Dubbo, Orange and Lismore.

Current projects

Access 3 Study

Funded by NSW Health to inform youth health policy, the Access 3 research study describes the experiences of young people accessing and navigating the health system in NSW, focusing on marginalised young people. The ACCESS 3 study focuses on young people aged 12-24 living in NSW who are:

Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
living in rural/remote areas
homeless or at risk of homelessness
refugee or vulnerable migrants
gender and/or sexuality diverse.

More information on this project is available by contacting:

Clinical Associate Professor Melissa Kang, Principal Investigator
PH: +61 2 9514 7986
E: melissa.kang@sydney.edu.au

Ask Share Know: Rapid evidence for general practice decisions

The ASK Centre for Research Excellence is a collaboration between Bond University and the University of Sydney, led by internationally renowned academics across the fields of general practice, evidence-based medicine, shared decision-making, guideline development and knowledge translation. The program is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). There is a strong group of GP researchers joined by a psychologist, shared decision-making expert and a health economist for this grant.

Investigators: Professor Paul Glasziou, Professor Lyndal Trevena, Professor Tammy Hoffman, Professor Kirsten McCaffery, Professor Chris Del Mar, Professor Glenn Salkeld, Professor Jenny Doust, Professor France Legare

For further information please contact Ms Pinika Patel.

International engagement

We aim to enhance and develop quality general practice and primary health care both in Australia and overseas. Our programs equip participants with the knowledge and abilities to apply Australian standards of general practice to their own practices, training standards and curriculum.

We work with partner countries to develop programs suited to their needs, with the opportunity to include locally relevant case-based teaching modules and training based on priority health areas. This can include in-country programs, programs at the University of Sydney and online modules.

For more information, download the Specialty of General Practice International Training Flyer in:

For more information on our international engagement, please contact Hankiz Ekpar at hankiz.ekpar@sydney.edu.au.