The concept of Social Accountability in Health (SAH), initially defined by the World Health Organization for medical schools as the commitment to orient their activities toward addressing the priority health concerns of the society they serve, has progressively been extended to health professionals and, more specifically, to the medical field. However, the concrete implementation of this responsibility in physicians’ daily practice remains insufficiently documented. General practice, operating at the interface between the population and its health issues, constitutes a particularly relevant field of investigation.To identify the behaviours and practices that reflect general practitioners’ engagement in social accountability in health.A mixed qualitative study was conducted among general practitioners in French-speaking Belgium, combining semi-structured participant observations and semi-structured interviews, based on a competency framework for the socially responsible physician. The purposive sample targeted practitioners identified as being engaged in SAH. Data were analysed using grounded theory to develop an explanatory model of socially responsible behaviours in general practice.Seven general practitioners participated. Analysis of 589 observations and excerpts of discourse led to the identification of 170 codes grouped into 17 themes and two central categories: a personal reflexive dimension and a socially responsible professional dimension. Physicians act at several levels (clinical, community, and societal) by mobilising specific behavioural competencies and a global, equity-driven conception of health. Together, these elements lead to a dynamic balance between personal needs and professional responsibilities, serving the priority health needs of society.The findings indicate that social accountability in health relies less on the practice setting than on a reflexive stance and an engaged approach to SAH.Maintaining a balance between self-respect and professional demands appears to be an essential condition for delivering high-quality, stable, and sustainable socially responsible practice.

I want to use mistakes  we make as gp's and the use of formative learning. This will give us the opportunitie to coconstruct together, and  learn, continously  in our lives. This will prevent  doctor burn-put,  This is so important that we should make core values of colleague-friends for all GP's.Self reported1. We promote continuity of  a colleague-friend, where two or more colleagues build mutual trust and  enable  each other 2. We care about each other. Colleague-friends help each other to understand  our own situation better 3. Colleague-friends prioritise time and effort towards each other. 4.We  engage professionally and friendly with our colleague-friends life situasjons, biographical  stories, beliefs, worries and hopes. To safeguard our long-term resilience, we  attend to ourt own well-being, as well as that of our  colleague-friends. 5.We engage actively in training of  our future colleagues, taking  critical  view of new knowledge, also together with our colleague-friends. 6.Respect  for human dignity is a prerequisite for healing and recovery for our colleague-friends. We recognise that social strain can increase the stress of our colleague-friends.  7.We engage actively in developing and adapting  effective  ways to cooperate, also with our colleague-friends.I believe there is a continuum from feedback  in medical school, as an intern  and young doctor, to the lives of senior doctors: we always need opportunities to reconstruct our knowledge and reflect on our experiences, both good and bad. “All sides should have opportunities  to  reconstruct  their knowledge and reframe practice during feedback. A shared understanding or solution needs to be developed that neither party possessed before. This requires a conscious  and deliberate effort enacted through dialogue. “ Medical education Volume53, Issue7  July 2019 Pages 652-654 When I say … feedback Rola Ajjawi, Glenn RegehrI believe there is a continuum from feedback  in medical school, as an intern  and young doctor, to the lives of senior doctors: we always need opportunities to reconstruct our knowledge and reflect on our experiences, both good and bad.

Patient-centered care is a core principle of family medicine and is influenced by physicians’ professional, personal, and reflective practices. Reading habits may contribute to empathy, perspective-taking, and communication skills; however, their relationship with patient-centered orientation has been insufficiently explored among family physicians.This study aimed to examine the relationship between family physicians’ reading habits and their patient-centered orientation.This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted among actively practicing family physicians in Türkiye. A total of 396 physicians participated via an online survey. Data were collected using a sociodemographic questionnaire, a Reading Habits Questionnaire, the Adult Reading Motivation Scale, and the Patient–Physician Orientation Scale (PPOS). Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 24.0, with a significance level of p<0.05.The mean total PPOS score was 52.83 ± 6.85, indicating a relatively high level of patient-centered orientation. Female physicians had significantly higher total and care subscale scores, while male physicians scored higher on the sharing subscale. Longer professional experience (≥16 years) was associated with higher sharing and care scores. Time spent on academic reading was not significantly associated with patient-centeredness. However, physicians who allocated ≥9 hours per week to leisure reading had significantly higher care subscale scores (p=0.001). Higher leisure reading time was also associated with greater reading motivation across multiple subscales.These findings suggest that not only professional experience but also the type of reading may influence patient-centered attitudes. Leisure reading, rather than academic reading alone, appears to support the caring dimension of patient-centered care.Reading habits—particularly leisure reading—are associated with patient-centered orientation among family physicians. Encouraging diverse reading practices may represent an accessible strategy to support patient-centered care in family medicine.

In Taiwan, where discussing death remains culturally sensitive, family members often request all possible treatments as an act of filial piety. Such expectations make it difficult for doctors to engage in open goals-of-care discussions or to focus on comfort-oriented treatment. Family medicine residents working in hospice wards frequently face moral distress when they encounter requests for non-beneficial interventions or when they struggle with their own beliefs about what constitutes good and compassionate care at the end of life.This reflection is based on the author’s experience supervising hospice training in a tertiary medical center. Residents complete a three-month daytime rotation and one year of night duties in the hospice unit. The program includes daily interdisciplinary rounds, weekly team meetings with nurses, dietitian, psychologist, social worker and Buddhist chaplain, and monthly ethics conferences. Ethical reflections apply the four principles-non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy, and justice-to analyze cases involving medical futility, surrogate decision-making, and cultural expectations.Residents became more confident in initiating goals-of-care conversations, more patient and empathetic with families, and more aware of their own professional values about life and death. Integrating culturally sensitive ethics and death-literacy education into family medicine training is essential to promote goal-concordant and compassionate care.Ethical reflection within palliative education provides a structured way for residents to explore moral distress, share emotions, and understand the influence of cultural norms on clinical decisions. It strengthens teamwork and empathy, allowing trainees to balance professional responsibility with respect for diverse values, which embodies the humanistic principles central to family medicine and primary care.Embedding ethical reflection in hospice training transforms moral struggle into professional growth. By addressing cultural challenges with humility and compassion, family medicine residents can develop the humanistic competence required for equitable, person-centered end-of-life care.

Recent systematic and umbrella reviews converge toward a multidimensional understanding of the “good doctor,” encompassing medical expertise, interpersonal competencies, motivation, and ethical values in general practice and family medicine. Keywords: Empathy; Professional competence; Physician-patient relations; Ethics; MotivationTo synthesize evidence from systematic and umbrella reviews describing the key dimensions and attributes that define the good doctor across clinical competency, interpersonal communication, motivation, and professionalism.We performed a review of published systematic and umbrella reviews indexed in PubMed, Embase, and Scopus between 2010 and 2024 focusing on professional and human factors in general practice. Reviews were selected using inclusion criteria: reports addressing physician attributes, skills, values, and their impact on patient or educational outcomes. Data extraction and thematic synthesis identified recurring dimensions (clinical competence, communication, motivation, personality, ethics). Citations included Khawar et al. (2022), Steiner-Hofbauer et al. (2017), Ibanez et al. (2010), Chukwuma et al. (2020), Janssen et al. (2020), Huber et al. (2020), Mutmainnah et al. (2023).Key dimensions describing the good doctor include: clinical expertise (knowledge, pragmatic decision-making, and complex patient data management), organizational skills (teamwork, supervision, and time management), interpersonal qualities (active listening, clear communication, empathy, respect, and collaboration), motivation and personal development (curiosity, continuous learning, willingness to recognize limits, and patient engagement), and personality/values (empathy, kindness, honesty, humility, and ethical conduct). These attributes are recognized by multiple stakeholders, including patients, peers, and students. Empathy, communication, and integrity are universally cited as fundamental hallmarks.The synthesis demonstrates growing consensus on a holistic profile for the good doctor, balancing clinical skill, relational competence, lifelong learning, and ethical integrity. However, expectations may vary depending on stakeholder perspective and local context. Future training and assessment models should foreground both professional expertise and humanistic qualities.The good doctor is defined by an equilibrium between clinical competence, interpersonal skills, motivation for improvement, and ethical values. Empathy, communication, and integrity remain universally essential in contemporary medical practice.

Defining and cultivating “excellence” in family medicine is challenging, especially across diverse health systems and cultures. Practical, experience-based wisdom from frontline GPs may help clarify what really matters in everyday family medicine. The study's objectives were to collect, analyze, and distill the "single best piece of advice" from a large, international cohort of GPs to identify the key habits and principles valued most by experienced practitioners. A global, anonymous survey was distributed via the Golden Nuggets, WONCA World, and WONCA Europe newsletters. 468 Family Doctors from 48 countries participated, providing 531 pieces of advice. This qualitative data was thematically analyzed, with responses rephrased, counted, and grouped to distill the most common recommendations. The analysis distilled the advice into seven primary habits. The most frequently recommended habit, by a significant margin (shared by 127 GPs), was "First, Listen," emphasizing the diagnostic and rapportbuilding power of uninterrupted listening. Other key habits included "Cultivate Your Network" (54 GPs), "Embrace the Examination" (34 GPs), "Relationship = Superpower" (30 GPs), "Learn Continuously" (30 GPs), "Trust Your Intuition" (23 GPs), and "Take Care of Yourself" (19 GPs).This study crystallizes the global GP community's wisdom into an actionable framework. Across countries and systems, experienced GPs converge on a small set of relational, reflective, and self-care habits as the foundation of excellent family medicine. However, selection bias is inherent to the recruitment method (newsletters), potentially favoring GPs active in international networks, and the identified habits reflect subjective professional consensus rather than objectively measured clinical efficacy. The findings provide a practical, peer-validated framework for professional development that can be integrated into clinical practice to improve patient care and physician well-being.

General practitioners (GPs) face increasing clinical, social, and organisational demands that reshape how they define their professional identity. Throughout their training and careers, GPs develop a professional identity in constant interaction with their personal self. This development is influenced by (in)formal statements outlining the norms and expectations of becoming a GP. This raises the question: what messages do these texts convey about how trainees should position their personal and professional identities in an increasingly complex healthcare environment?To examine how the relationship between personal and professional identity in GP training is constructed in both written and spoken language. To identify the implications for education and practice concerning the formation of professional identity.A critical discourse analysis, which explores how language shapes and is shaped by the world, was conducted within the XXX GP training context. The dataset included formal documents (e.g., professionalism guidelines, competency frameworks, educational plans) and four homogeneous focus groups comprising trainees, GPs, and educators (n=31). Data were coded using Willig’s six-stage framework.Five discourses were identified:  1. System (overarching): presents structural constraints as inevitable, positioning GPs as adaptive rather than transformative actors.  2. Neutrality: positions the GP as emotionally controlled and politically impartial, with personal identity subordinate to professionalism.  3. Authenticity: legitimises personal expression and diversity within accepted professional boundaries.  4. Visibility of responsibility: extends professional accountability, constructing the GP as a moral figure constantly monitored.  5. Self-care: frames personal wellbeing as essential for professional functioning, often conflicting with systemic pressures.There are several ways to frame the relationship between personal and professional identity, each of these discourses offers both affordances and boundaries. Some of these boundaries challenge each other or restrict the GP's ability to redefine the relationship. In particular, the system discourse limits trainees' freedom to reshape professionalism. One of the key challenges is the tension between neutrality and authenticity, highlighting that identity formation involves negotiating competing expectations.Supporting GPs in balancing personal and professional identities requires explicit attention to the importance of discourses. Education needs to acknowledge diverse perspectives and the realities of a changing healthcare system.