The present medical undergraduate curriculum seems to give the impression that general practice is the most benign form of practicing medicine — ideal for those students who prefer not to play around with research, teach or be burdened with hospital administration. However, the growing pressure of financial and bureaucratic reform, together with results from studies in the primary care setting, indicate that academic general practice is arguably the way forward.
Current perceptions of general practice are not as glamourous as an academic career in a speciality. Presently, more academic student doctors are directed towards hospital practice, whereas those with less academic and more clinical interest are suggested general practice. Creating a new breed of proactive GPs heavily involved in research and medical education, may change this. Recognising that GPs may have such skills, combined with the economic and management sagacity required to manage a practice, may be the next step in primary care.
So how would I implement this? The first step would be to assess the way we train undergraduate doctors, progressing later to changes in the vocational training scheme. Although postgraduate education is undergoing major restructuring with a suggested 2-year foundation programme,1 its effects on GP training have yet to be seen. As for undergraduate education, the contents of a core curriculum in medicine are as hotly debated as the formation of foundation hospitals. Of course, due to the exponential increase in medical advances and central government involvement, it is both necessary and important to revise teaching content continually.
When we look at the additional roles of the modern day physician, …