Examining the general practitioner's role in health education: a critical review.

Recent international and national policy documents have placed great emphasis on health promotion programmes and one of the key figures in these programmes has been the general practitioner and the primary health care team. This review, drawing mainly on evidence from the United Kingdom, critically reviews the role of the general practitioner in health promotion and disease prevention. The first part of the paper examines the assumptions in contemporary policy and outlines alternative roles for the general practitioner in health education. The second part focuses on the social organization of the doctor-patient relationship and its influence on health education, specifically examining the structure of the doctor-patient relationship, the uncertainties in scientific health knowledge and the lay perspective on health.