TEACHING GENERAL PRACTITIONERS WITH VASCULAR PATHOLOGY CASES

Training GPs with real-life cases is evidence-based teaching. It is a powerful tool not only to manage uncertainty in general practice and to increase decision-making capacity but also to enhance quality of care, timely diagnosis, improved prognosis and survival of the patient and avoiding preventable deaths. In teaching with cases, co-operation between the general practitioner and other medical professionals acquires new dimensions, especially when targeting higher expertize. Using real-life cases is important both for presenting interesting difficult to interpret and ambiguous cases, as well as for the subsequent discussion and analysis, which usually goes beyond one or more differentiated medical specialties. We present three vascular cases as well as key points for discussing them: case 1 with aortic atherosclerosis of the aorta and left-artery artery and occlusion of the right artery; case 2 with deep venous thrombosis of the lower leg; case 3 of rupture of abdominal aneurysm. In conclusion teaching with vascular cases is not only an important part of the training of students and postgraduates to acquire a specialty in General practice/Family medicine, for continuing medical education of working physicians, but saves