From Generalism to Specialty—A Short History of General Practice

Abstract

As we launch into the second volume of InnovAiT, it is easy to forget that training for general practice became compulsory less than 30 years ago. General practice is a relatively new specialty of medicine, and the National Health Service that we work in, together with its concept of health care for all, is just 60 years old. It is often helpful to understand the context of the past, and this special editorial aims to provide a ‘Back to the Future’ glance of general practice and how it has evolved into the respected specialty that it is today.