Dr. Richard Birtwhistle is the Director of the Centre for Studies in Primary Care, a family physician, and a Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen's University. His research interests are in primary care, hypertension and chronic disease management. Most recently, Dr. Birtwhistle led the national initiative to form a national primary care research network that will initially investigate current models of care and interdisciplinary teams in the delivery of primary care. The initiative to establish the national primary care research network was provided through a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In 2005, Dr. Birtwhistle was awarded the research paper of the year award by the College of Family Physicians of Canada in the British Medical Journal (BMJ 2004;328:204.).