Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • BJGP LIFE
  • MORE
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Librarian information
    • Resilience
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers

User menu

  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
British Journal of General Practice
Intended for Healthcare Professionals
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in
  • Follow bjgp on Twitter
  • Visit bjgp on Facebook
  • Blog
  • Listen to BJGP podcast
  • Subscribe BJGP on YouTube
Intended for Healthcare Professionals
British Journal of General Practice

Advanced Search

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • BJGP LIFE
  • MORE
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Librarian information
    • Resilience
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
Out of Hours

20 years of GPnotebook: from a medical student project to a national resource

James McMorran, Damian Crowther and Stewart McMorran
British Journal of General Practice 2014; 64 (619): 92-93. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp14X677202
James McMorran
GPwSI in Diabetes and Cardiovascular Risk, Coventry and Rugby CCG; Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, Warwick University, Coventry. Editor and co-creator of GPnotebook.
Roles: Coventry GP
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Damian Crowther
University of Cambridge, Department of Genetics, Cambridge.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Stewart McMorran
Consultant in Accident and Emergency Medicine and Clinical Director Buckingham Hospitals NHS Trust, Amersham.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

GPnotebook (www.gpnotebook.co.uk) is a computerised reference resource that has been developed over more than two decades. It is a database that now contains over 2 million words of clinical information and over 27 000 index terms.

WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF GPNOTEBOOK?

The original idea for the database began in the canteen of John Radcliffe Hospital in 1990 while James McMorran, a first year Oxford University clinical student, was writing up his medical notes. Instead of writing notes in longhand he wrote his notes in ‘mind maps’ of packets of information linking different concepts and conditions in a two-dimensional representation of clinical knowledge. James discussed with Stewart McMorran (then a medical student at Cambridge University and a talented computer programmer) this way of representing medical knowledge and between them they created the authoring software to produce linking ‘packets’ of information in a database. This first authoring software and database was the origin of what today is GPnotebook. It was, in effect, a ‘Wiki’ over 16 years before the first ‘Wiki’!

Initially James used the authoring software alone to capture his own clinical learning. There was interest from other medical students at Oxford and in the end a team of six authors (mainly Oxford medical students) became the founding (and continuing) principal authors for GPnotebook. Among them was Damian Crowther who, in time, took over the role of technical lead for the site. James takes the role of editorial lead for the website. Damian developed the software for the web version of the database which was released on the worldwide web in 2001 as GPnotebook.

There were many false starts from 1991 until 2001 but the authoring team had continued to update the database as a shared resource for a group of friends. The creation of the GPnotebook website in 2001 changed the database from a shared resource for a group of like-minded medics to a resource used by thousands of doctors from the UK and all over the world each day.

HOW IS GPNOTEBOOK NOW BEING USED?

GPnotebook is regularly used by doctors, particularly GPs in the UK. Access to GPnotebook is free and unrestricted to medical students (via validation of their University email address) and doctors and medical students in developing countries (validation via Facebook). During the 12 months until June 2013, 11.5 million unique users accessed pages on GPnotebook. Of those who logged into personal accounts, 30 621 users were GMC accredited clinicians working in the UK and of these, 18 719 GMC accredited doctors using the site described themselves as GPs.

There were 6.4 million pages accessed by GMC accredited clinicians during this period while they were logged in, of which 4.0 million pages were read by the GMC accredited users who described themselves as UK GPs. Many doctors take advantage of the four free pages per day and so the actual readership by UK GPs is substantially higher. Data concerning users can be derived for all and show we have a mix of two groups of users. One group visits rarely and reads a few open access pages, while the other group are predominantly UK clinicians who visit repeatedly and read more pages.

INFORMATION ACCESSED

GPnotebook is a very ‘broad’ knowledge resource with over 27 000 index terms providing access to more than 2 million words of information. Users may be considered generalists and so analysis of the terms that they enter into the search box may be considered representative of the information needs of the national clinical population.

We have recorded the content of search phrases that have been entered by users of GPnotebook. Table 1 shows the top 10 search phrases, in fact the most common search terms are single words as indicated.

View this table:
  • View inline
  • View popup
Table 1.

Top 10 search phrases

A user may be searching on just the stated term or a combination term that contains the stated term: if we consider this with respect to the term ‘hypertension’ then there are many combination terms containing the term hypertension; for example, systemic hypertension, hypertension and stroke, hypertension and lipids, and pulmonary hypertension. In fact there are 195 different pages in GPnotebook that have hypertension in the title.

If we then consider which pages are subsequently most frequently accessed then the top four are:

  • exclusion from school (guidance re: common infections), n = 61 412

  • migraine (main page), n = 34 108

  • systemic hypertension (main page), n = 35 173

  • gout (main page), n = 31 052

The exclusion from school guidance page has been accessed more than 60 000 times by logged in GP users of GPnotebook since the tracker facility became available in 2005.

CONCLUSION

Having started as a project to help a group of medical students cope with the information overload of clinical school, GPnotebook has evolved over the past 20 years to become a national, and international, resource.

Notes

Competing interests

All authors are shareholders and Directors of Oxbridge Solutions Ltd that is the exclusive owner of www.GPnotebook.co.uk. All shares are held by the original founders of the site and the authors. Oxbridge Solutions Ltd receives income from commercial organisations but these sources do not have any influence on editorial policy.

  • © British Journal of General Practice 2014
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

In this issue

British Journal of General Practice: 64 (619)
British Journal of General Practice
Vol. 64, Issue 619
February 2014
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Or,
sign in or create an account with your email address
Email Article

Thank you for recommending British Journal of General Practice.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person to whom you are recommending the page knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
20 years of GPnotebook: from a medical student project to a national resource
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from British Journal of General Practice
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from British Journal of General Practice.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
20 years of GPnotebook: from a medical student project to a national resource
James McMorran, Damian Crowther, Stewart McMorran
British Journal of General Practice 2014; 64 (619): 92-93. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp14X677202

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
20 years of GPnotebook: from a medical student project to a national resource
James McMorran, Damian Crowther, Stewart McMorran
British Journal of General Practice 2014; 64 (619): 92-93. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp14X677202
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Jump to section

  • Top
  • Article
    • WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF GPNOTEBOOK?
    • HOW IS GPNOTEBOOK NOW BEING USED?
    • INFORMATION ACCESSED
    • CONCLUSION
    • Notes
  • Figures & Data
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF

More in this TOC Section

  • Viewpoint: Redundant subjectivity?
  • Books: A Layman’s Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis
  • Can compassion help cure health-related disorders?
Show more Out of Hours

Related Articles

Cited By...

Intended for Healthcare Professionals

BJGP Life

BJGP Open

 

@BJGPjournal's Likes on Twitter

 
 

British Journal of General Practice

NAVIGATE

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • All Issues
  • Online First
  • Authors & reviewers

RCGP

  • BJGP for RCGP members
  • BJGP Open
  • RCGP eLearning
  • InnovAiT Journal
  • Jobs and careers

MY ACCOUNT

  • RCGP members' login
  • Subscriber login
  • Activate subscription
  • Terms and conditions

NEWS AND UPDATES

  • About BJGP
  • Alerts
  • RSS feeds
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

AUTHORS & REVIEWERS

  • Submit an article
  • Writing for BJGP: research
  • Writing for BJGP: other sections
  • BJGP editorial process & policies
  • BJGP ethical guidelines
  • Peer review for BJGP

CUSTOMER SERVICES

  • Advertising
  • Contact subscription agent
  • Copyright
  • Librarian information

CONTRIBUTE

  • BJGP Life
  • eLetters
  • Feedback

CONTACT US

BJGP Journal Office
RCGP
30 Euston Square
London NW1 2FB
Tel: +44 (0)20 3188 7400
Email: journal@rcgp.org.uk

British Journal of General Practice is an editorially-independent publication of the Royal College of General Practitioners
© 2022 British Journal of General Practice

Print ISSN: 0960-1643
Online ISSN: 1478-5242