Jumpstarting your PhD in Family Medicine

Topic: Jumpstarting your PhD in Family Medicine
6 hours: 09h00 – 16h00 on Thursday, 18 August 2022
Venue: main conference venue
Cost: R495 per person

Background
The discipline of Family Medicine is growing in South Africa. The South African Academy of Family Physicians (SAAFP) has focused its attention on strengthening the scholarly foundation of the discipline. One of these activities includes forming a special interest group in the Education and Training Committee (ETC), which focuses on supporting postgraduate students and their supervisors in conducting PhD-level research in family medicine and primary care. Growing the pool of PhD graduates will enhance the quality of academic primary care research outputs and capacitate the next generation of academic leaders to further grow the discipline. The different PhD programmes across the country vary in terms of local supervisory and instructional capacity as well as coursework on research methods and other resources opportunities, and it may be of value to draw from a wider network of resources such as a community of practice facilitated by this special interest group in the SAAFP ETC.

Objectives

1. To equip workshop participants with an approach to planning their PhD journey and identifying activities in their PhD portfolio, which will ensure that they are prepared with essential research skills and resources to complete the research activities across the PhD lifespan.
2. To enable workshop participants in defining their research question and understand what is needed to ensure that the question/hypothesis and scope of the project are at the level of a PhD compared to a Master’s level project, while remaining doable at the same time.
3. To help form a community of practice within the broader South African academic primary care network.
4. To develop an ongoing programme of support through monthly PhD activities.

Methods
This 6-hour workshop is structured to allow for interactive input, learning from recent PhD graduates’ experiences, but importantly, to receive direct input and feedback on your PhD question and proposal via small group work and shared reflections. We will be catering for around 20 participants and hope that this workshop will also help create a community of practice to support you as you commence the PhD journey.

Intended audience
Prospective PhD candidates in Family Medicine who are about to start their journey and have a particular research question in mind.

Registration via the conference website
Interested attendees should complete a brief registration form, which will help the organisers plan the workshop’s content and screen attendees, especially if the interest in the workshop exceeds the planned numbers.