ArticleJournal of medical ethics2005
What makes a good GP? An empirical perspective on virtue in general practice.
Article in Journal of medical ethics, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Patients values regarding primary health care: a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative evidence.BMC health services research · 2023Pooled it
- What makes a good general practitioner consultation for refugees: perspectives of Africans from refugee backgrounds in Australia.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Comprehensiveness in Primary Care: A Scoping Review.The Milbank quarterly · 2025Article
- Exploring residents' perspectives on their professional identity in general practice residency in the Netherlands: a qualitative study.BMJ open · 2024Article
- The voice of the profession: how the ethical demand is professionally refracted in the work of general practitioners.BMC medical ethics · 2023Article
- How general practitioners decide on maxims of action in response to demands from conflicting sets of norms: a grounded theory study.BMC medical ethics · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This paper takes a virtuist approach to medical ethics to explore, from an empirical angle, ideas about settled ways of living a good life. Qualitative research methods were used to analyse the ways in which a group of 15 general practitioners (GPs) articulated notions of good doctoring and the virtues in their work. I argue that the GPs, whose talk is analysed here, defined good general practice in terms of the ideals of accessibility, comprehensiveness, and continuity. They regarded these ideals significant both for the way they dealt with morally problematic situations and for how they conducted their professional lives more generally. In addition, I argue that the GPs who articulated these ideals most clearly were able to, in part, because they shared the experience of working in rural areas. This experience helped them to develop an understanding of the nature of general practice that their urban colleagues were less able to draw on. In that sense, the structural and organisational framework of general practice in rural areas provided the context for their understanding of ideals in general practice.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.