35th NAPCRG Annual Meeting
 20-23 October 2007, Vancouver, British Columbia
Libby Kalucy, PHC RIS
My first NAPCRG meeting in Vancouver in October was excellent.
I'd heard lots of good reports about NAPCRG over the last few years, and the meeting certainly exceeded my expectations of hearing stimulating rigorous high quality research presented really well by passionate people such as Lawrence Green, David Kuhl, Jeffrey Borkan and Carol Herbert (who received the Maurice Wood award).
Carol reinforced that researchers must do what they need to do to answer the questions they want to ask, and if necessary learn skills and ask others.
She considers we all have a responsibility to empower all those we work with to become the best they can be.
To improve health and health care, Carol Herbert and Lawrence Green espoused participatory research, which does not favour a methodology, but is a way of doing research business, as rigorously as possible within the limits of reality. This can put more practice into research.
The primary care editor of the BMJ identified the most valuable commodity in research is a new idea.
When BMJ editors look through thousands of papers, they ask Is it new? Is it true? Will it help practitioners make better decisions?
He suggested writing a good abstract and a submission letter that grabs attention in three lines.
This session was complemented by the ten most common mistakes in writing up your research, by Bill Phillips, editor, Annals of Family Medicine:
- Ignore your audience
- Tell the whole story of your research
- Use your old literature review
- Don't follow author guidelines
- Jumble IMRD (introduction - method- results - discussion)
- Say it all over and over and again
- Try to hide study weaknesses
- Don't check everything
- Write in your spare time
- Give up after one rejection
Do look at the website digital resources for conference presentations <www.napcrg.org>.
Australian General Practice Network Forum
15-18 November 2007, Hobart
Ann-Louise Hordacre & Simon Patterson, PHC RIS
 Data are currency, results count, measurement matters! These were key themes reiterated throughout the conference program and were manifest in the release of What Divisions Do . This report, based substantially on data collected through the Annual Survey of Divisions (ASD) and National Quality and Performance System (NQPS), is a valuable document indicating how Divisions are making an impact on the primary health care sector.
The tension - balance and conflict - between private and public funding of Divisions was evident in the first plenary with Stephen Leeder (Menzies Group) discussing the macro systemic drivers of health, followed by Christine Bennett (MBF) placing health responsibility clearly with the individual. While this theme was not addressed specifically through the program, the interesting mix of academic, Division and corporate speakers allowed participants to draw their own conclusions.
The four broad concurrent streams with a continuous facilitator over four sessions, gave sessions continuity and depth. The facilitators were senior Australian General Practice Network (AGPN) people who were very familiar with the content of their sessions, were able to recap at the start of each session, and summarise back to the final plenary - a good way to capture the synthesised points made over the Forum.
Current and future issues for primary health care and the role of Divisions were discussed in and out of session. Somewhat contentiously, Gavin Mooney again called for fewer (and larger) Divisions. These could incorporate fund-holding and have the potential to 'compete with hospitals'. Food for thought!
The weekend before the Federal election proved to be an interesting time to hold the AGPN Forum. Both the incumbent Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott and the Shadow Health Minister Nicola Roxon presented during their busy campaigns. From a primary health care perspective Nicola Roxon presented new and interesting policy directions. With election results now in, we look forward to implementing these policies.
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