Is there a need for travel medicine education for General Practitioner's in training in rural Scotland? Results of a survey in the North of Scotland.

Dr. Christian Reuter, Dr. Eric Walker

Introduction:
Travel medicine is a newly emerging medical discipline, but as such it remains poorly defined and is often unrecognised by the medical community at large. Hence, the information given to the travelling public (the WHO estimated 937 million international tourists by 2010) is often inadequate or frankly incorrect.

Objectives:
The aim of this study was to:

1. Establish whether there is a need for travel-medicine education for GP-Registrars (GPR) in rural Scotland.
2. To quantify and determine the nature of that need.
3. Reflect on the implications for future training.

Methods:
A questionnaire was sent in January 2001 anonymously to all 51 GPR`s in North of Scotland.

36% (9 out of 25) had never heard of the Scottish NHS-travel website `TRAVAX` and 12 % (3) had no access to it in their training practice.

52% felt `little confidence` (8 out of 25) or `no confidence` (4) in giving travel health advice, 48% (11) felt `some confidence`.

60% (15 out of 25) wished more education in travel health (92% as one or two day-courses), 12% (3) did not wish more training.

76% (19 out of 25) thought GPR's should give travel advice, 24% (6) thought they should not, the latter because they felt inadequately trained and had not enough time in the surgery.

Conclusion:
There is an urgent need to include travel medicine in training for rural General Practice in Scotland.

Travel medicine should become part of the vocational training programme.