science

GPnotebook

GPnotebook is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand GPnotebook rather than just read about it. In short: GPnotebook is a British medical database for general practitioners (GPs). It is an online encyclopaedia of medicine that provides an immediate reference resource for clinicians worldwide.

Key takeaways

GPnotebook belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect GPnotebook to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of GPnotebook from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

GPnotebook is a British medical database for general practitioners (GPs). It is an online encyclopaedia of medicine that provides an immediate reference resource for clinicians worldwide. The database consists of over 30,000 index terms and over two million words of information. GPnotebook is provided online by Oxbridge Solutions Limited. GPnotebook website is primarily designed with the needs of general practitioners (GPs) in mind, and written by a variety of specialists, ranging from paediatrics to accident and emergency. 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 medical ‘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 of GPnotebook. Among them was Damian Crowther who, in time, took over the role of technical lead for the project. 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. GPnotebook is used within consultation by general practitioners and is often used to access information about rare diseases

References

External links Official website Two Innovative Online Companies Improve Access To Information For Medical Professionals Archived 2011-05-16 at the Wayback Machine A RCGP article describing the history of GPnotebook

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with GPnotebook

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what GPnotebook claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to GPnotebook before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about GPnotebook ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of GPnotebook

In research: GPnotebook appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses GPnotebook in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: GPnotebook is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics British medical websites, Medical databases, Online databases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for GPnotebook outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “GPnotebook” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study GPnotebook in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what GPnotebook means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain GPnotebook out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is GPnotebook in simple terms?

GPnotebook is a British medical database for general practitioners (GPs). It is an online encyclopaedia of medicine that provides an immediate reference resource for clinicians worldwide.

Why does GPnotebook matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study GPnotebook?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on GPnotebook.