When I started in medical school I wanted to work in hospitals. Throughout medical school, among my peers and the staff in the hospitals, the general opinion (and I'll be honest I fell into this category) was that GPs were almost looked down upon. To become a GP was almost seen as a last resort, for those who were not clever enough, ambitious enough or hard working enough to become consultants. Either that or it was a role for women who wanted to work part-time so that they could have lots of children. It was not the job for the young enthusiastic medical student/junior doctor with high aspirations and ambitions.
When I qualified as a house officer I wanted to be a surgeon, an orthopaedic surgeon at that. I enjoyed the idea of sports medicine as it threw together my two great interests: sports of all types and medicine. I thought that the best way to achieve this was as an orthopaedic surgeon; of course I realise now that I was wrong. Then I actually did a job in orthopaedics and things started to change. I appreciate that you …