The Central Research Unit of General Practice: a personal review after 22 years.

The Central Research Unit of General Practice in Copenhagen was established in 1978 and was one of many steps in the progress of academic general practice that had been taken during the previous 40 years. The social development of the health care system in Denmark, with ever-greater specialization of medicine, had increasingly pointed to the risk of fragmented, episodic, disease-oriented, specialized patient care, and of an expensively organized health care system. This had led to an awareness of the need for the generalist practitioner, and within the general practice profession of a need for a deeper understanding of the role and tasks of the general practitioner (GP). Activities to promote teaching and research in general practice were gradually initiated within the profession.