Are GP career intentions more prevalent in UCL Primary Health Care iBSc students?

Ryo Fukaura; Melvyn Jones

doi:10.3399/bjgp14X677077

Peile1 mentions the importance of the role of medical schools in influencing students to consider a career in general practice. Research on the undergraduate determinants on medical students’ career choices and specifically choosing a career in general practice2,3 is important because medical schools can now tailor their teaching to overcome the problem of the declining number of GPs. Little research has been done on the career impact of iBSc degrees, and less on iBScs in primary health care (PHC). Traditional pre-clinical iBSc degrees have often influenced students academically, and discouraged them from becoming GPs.4,5 The PHC iBSc course is a relatively new course at UCL, and it aims to widen the scope of medical education by developing research, clinical and critical appraisal skills as well as exploring general practice in depth.6

We carried out a case-control study of current UCL students, in the form of an online survey. This study was approved by the UCL ethics committee. All PHC graduates from the 2009–2010 to the 2012–2013 cohorts were identified. Each was matched (in terms of iBSc completion) with three students from any other iBSc degrees from UCL.

Questionnaires online were then made available to them for their completion. The response rate was 33 out of 104 (31.73%), 13 (of 15) PHC students expressed a degree of interest in general practice, while only 8 (of 18) non-PHC students expressed interest. This was statistically significant (OR = 8.125, P = 0.002). There were no other correlations between GP intention and sex, stage of medical school or ethnicity. This study suggests that the PHC iBSc is associated with a stronger interest in a GP career, and demographic variables in this group did not impact on GP career intention. A potential bias is that the students enrolled on the PHC course may already have developed a strong interest in a GP career prior to their iBSc year which may have influenced our results.

A PHC iBSc course better informs students about general practice, although being better informed alone does not directly translate to a stronger GP career intention.

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