Why are general practitioners coming to a general medicine congress?

During the Lyon primary care congress, the GROUM.F (French qualitative research network) organized a workshop around focus groups. The first part of the workshop was theoretical initiation followed by a practical work of data collection. The researchers chose a research question concerning the motivations of the GPs to participate to a primary care congress. A topic guide had been elaborated. The analysis of the data from the recorded transcripts pointed numerous motivations often inter-linked. Mainly teachers or trainees, participants came to the congress for scientific, social, personal and educational reasons. Training course for research was more the initial motivation of juniors. Both professional and family obstacles were described by both generations. Balance clearly favored benefits to congress participation. The particularity of the sampling would make necessary to reproduce this work at a largest scale and with a more representative sampling of GPs.