Professor Quassim Cassam has designed a website on professional virtues in modern medicine (Professional Virtues in Modern Medicine) which has been adopted as a training module by the Royal College of General Practitioners. There are many difficult questions about the nature of general practice, and thinking about and exploring generalist virtues has helped GPs to clarify the idea of it. Professor Cassam has also organised annual training days for trainee GPs, in addition to delivering several conferences and workshops for groups over 40 General Practitioners.

Professor Cassam says: “I've always been interested in medicine, and this led me to think about the virtues of a good GP. My work has two aims: to identify the key virtues of excellent general practice and help GPs to cultivate these virtues. Most GPs have little or no philosophical training, and it is a major challenge to convince them that philosophy has anything to contribute to their professional toolkit. GPs face enormous challenges, and anything that helps them to improve is worth doing. Most GPs who have attended the training days and workshops have given me positive feedback. For many, it is important to have time set aside for reflection on their professional practice. I approached the work with humility – I hope! I'm always hugely impressed by trainee GPs and would be delighted to have contributed to their thinking about what it is to be a good GP. The beauty of this work is that GPs and philosophers have so much to learn from each other. I couldn't imagine a better environment in which to continue develop such a project, with its direct philosophical impact, than here at Warwick”.

 Web link: https://warwick.ac.uk/research/ref/stories/philosophical-thinking-to-help-gps/

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