GPs are not FPs and the distinction is important for patient care, research, reporting and health policy. Read the new research that documents the important differences.
Researchers, reviewers, editors and journalists need to stop reporting these two groups of physicians as an aggregate “FP/GP” group. Blurring these distinctions obscures important differences between the groups.
http://www.annfammed.org/content/18/2/127
This recent study documents how big a problem we have with this sloppy reporting.
Diep AM, Thoppe HS, Yang A, Agnani AS, Phillips WR. Accuracy of reporting primary care specialty status in medical research. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine November 2019, 32(6): 941-943. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2019.06.190141
https://www.jabfm.org/content/32/6/941
CONCLUSIONS. In key medical journals, most studies lump together GPs and FPs, masking differences between these distinct groups of physicians. Most research reports fail to explain how they classify PC clinicians. Research reports need to improve accuracy in studies of FPs and primary care in the US.
