News Story

On Wednesday 31st October, the UNSW Research Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity held a dinner to mark the launch of its new Practice Based Research Network, PHReNet-GP, and to acknowledge the enormous contribution that GPs and other practice staff make to the research of the centre.

Over a three course dinner, researchers and GPs mingled, discussing their common goal of high-quality primary health care research and improved patient care. Prof Nicholas Zwar introduced the idea of PHReNet-GP, a network of practices interested in participating in primary care research. The network will help streamline approaches to practices and should allow GPs and practice staff to become more involved in CPHCE research.

The network will follow successful overseas models and is only the second of its kind in Australia (and the first one in NSW). It will represent a partnership between general practice and researchers, and should move towards better quality primary care research.

Another important part of the night was recognising the outstanding contribution of individual GPs to CPHCE research. Prof Mark Harris, the centre’s executive director, presented awards to 5 GPs who had been nominated by centre staff for their dedication to primary care research. Award recipients were:

• Dr Peter Edwards, nominated for his continual interest in research and teaching over the years, particularly his willingness to be involved in the pilot stage of projects;
• Dr Vipin Goyal, nominated for his continuing support for CPHCE research projects, his enthusiasm for recruiting practices and his current work for the Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial of Nurse and General Practitioner Partnership for Care of COPD.
• Dr Qudsia Hasnani, nominated for her work in three of the centre’s current projects, the Shared Absolute Cardiovascular Risk Management in General Practice project, the Lifestyle Risk Management in the 45 year old Health Check in General Practice project, and the SNAP Decisions project;
• Dr Philip Lye, nominated for his work in CPHCE’s Shared Absolute Cardiovascular Risk Management in General Practice project;
• Dr George Tang, nominated for his research on Chinese immigrant mental health;

The night proved to be a successful one, opening the discussion of how researchers and GPs can work better together to improve the quality of primary care research in Australia and ultimately to improve patient care.

Images from the Evening
Dinner
Dr Lye with Professor Mark Harris
Dr Hasnani with Professor Mark Harris