This fourth edition of the South African Family Practice Manual has been aligned with the current list of clinical skills in the curriculum for the training of family physicians. As such it is an essential resource for all registrars in family medicine training programmes and will be particularly useful for those preparing for the national Fellowship examination. The Manual will also be relevant to all those training or working as medical generalists in our context – medical officers, general practitioners, interns, medical students and associate clinicians.

The Manual is a project of the South African Academy of Family Physicians and, as the user will see from the list of authors, it constitutes a collaborative project involving people from various Departments of Family Medicine in South Africa. It represents a distillation of the practical experience of a wide range of family physicians. This new edition has also expanded the editorial team to include Hanneke Brits (University of Free State), Mergan Naidoo (University of KwaZulu-Natal) and Tasleem Ras (University of Cape Town).

The Manual is a practical text that focuses on “How to do …” that which is relevant to South African district health care. For this reason some of the skills are appropriate only for rural or district hospitals, while others are of more general applicability to primary care and general practice. The family physician in our context is trained to function in both of these settings and our intention is to include all possible tasks expected of him or her within the District Health Services. In addition to covering practical clinical skills, the text includes a number of teaching, research and management skills. Note, however, that we have avoided providing clinical management guidelines – not only are there a number of initiatives in this area, but the constantly evolving evidence base and changing recommendations are also better suited to a more responsive electronic format such as the Internet.

In this fourth edition a number of sections have been completely revised, such as the material on community-orientated primary care and palliative care. An entirely new section on rehabilitation skills has been added and there are new chapters on skills such as taking a sexual history, emergency fasciotomy, amputations, ketamine anaesthesia, point of care ultrasound, and developing an effective learning environment.

The Handbook of Family Medicine is an essential guide for medical generalists working in an African context. This valuable educational resource is produced by the South African Academy of Family Physicians, and includes contributors from the Departments of Family Medicine in South Africa. The text is directed at undergraduate medical students and registrars, who are completing postgraduate training in family medicine, and is a useful resource for family physicians, general practitioners, interns, medical officers, clinical associates, clinical nurse practitioners and allied health care workers in the primary care setting.

Features:

• • • Learning objectives and mind maps, case studies, questions.
    • Focus on the needs of family doctors in South Africa.
    • Applicable to the training of clinical associates in primary health care and rural settings.
    • Figures, diagrams and tables to make text easily accessible for rural doctors.
    • Real life case studies
    • Approaches to a wider range of symptoms and condition seen
    • New ways of understanding the consultation and patient-centered communication
    • Core dimensions of effective primary care systems
    • The role of the family physician in leadership and clinical governance activities
    • New models and ideas for community-orientated primary care
    • How to develop the primary care team through education and learning together

Across the broad spectrum that is the district health system in South Africa today, a wide range of knowledge and expertise is required to perform effectively and professionally. South African family practice manual focuses on practical skills that family physicians should obtain during their training which are required in primary care and general practice as well as at district or rural hospitals.

South African family practice manual is a collaborative enterprise involving family physicians and educators. It draws on their wealth of practical experience to cover the full spectrum of family practice from the newborn to the elderly, including skills in both routine and emergency care. It deals extensively with aspects of clinical examination and common procedures, as well as key skills in the areas of communication, clinical training and teaching, management, research and community-oriented primary care. In this third edition, an entirely new section on anaesthetic skills for the district hospital has been added and there are new chapters on phototherapy, assessment of a drunk driver and facilitating meetings to review morbidity and mortality.

South African family practice manual is aimed at medical officers, general practitioners, interns, medical students and associate clinicians. It is also an essential resource for all registrars in family medicine training programmes and will be particularly useful for those preparing for the national Fellowship examination.

This is the 3rd edition of the South African family practice manual. It is an excellent manual on procedural and clinical skills for both family medicine trainers and trainees. It empowers the trainees with appropriate procedural and clinical skills during their training and adequately prepares them for the objective structured clinical exam (OSCE). A number of family medicine training programmes in Africa recommend the manual as an important resource material and I hope this extends to the whole continent.

Prof. Gboyega A. Ogunbanjo
President: South African Academy of Family Physicians
President: College of Family Physicians of South Africa

This manual, already well acclaimed and very widely used, is an important ?keep by your side? guide to the competencies you need to learn in training and keep up to date in many practice settings. And for tutors and trainers, it is an invaluable roadmap to your supervision and assessment of your learners and students.

Amanda Howe MD MEd FRCGP FAcadMED
President-Elect of WONCA (World Organisation of Family Doctors)
Professor of Primary Care, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia

Focus and scope:

The South African Family Practice (SAFP) journal is the official journal of the South African Academy of Family Physicians (SAAFP), and is aimed at all SAAFP members (including family physicians, registrars, associate members, students), working within primary care (both private and public health sectors, as well as urban and rural practice settings) within South Africa and the wider region. SAFP is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, which strives to provide primary care physicians (and their teams), as well as researchers, with a broad range of scholarly work in the disciplines of family medicine, primary health care, rural medicine, district health and other related fields. SAFP publishes original research, clinical reviews, and pertinent commentary that advance the knowledge base of these disciplines. The content of SAFP is designed to reflect and support further development of the broad basis of these disciplines through original research and critical review of evidence in important clinical areas; as well as to provide practitioners with continuing professional development material. SAFP adheres to the international acceptable editorial standards, as published by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).The journal’s editors are supported by an editorial board, which consists of South African members representing the nine academic training programmes as well as a representative from RuDASA (Rural Doctors Association of South Africa), and key members from the international family medicine and primary care community.