Editor’s choice

I am a penultimate year medical student. Since my first experience of general practice 2 years ago, and increasingly with any experience I’ve had since, I have stubbornly been announcing to anyone who’ll listen that I am going to be a GP… despite the overwhelmingly negative response this yields.

Like Dr Jones in the May BJGP, therefore, I found Dr Glasspool’s letter in the March BJGP brought me, yet again, back down to earth with a very loud thud.¹ In my albeit limited experience, a GP is in the uniquely rewarding position of being able to get to know their patients, see them through their life and potentially change the path it takes. So why, like Dr Glasspool, does every medic that I hear from remind me how dreadful a career choice this is? And it’s not just medics; only a couple of weeks ago I shared my career dream with a non-medic and found myself in a heated debate defending GPs everywhere against the accusation that they are underworked, under-informed, overpaid … the list goes on.

Unlike Dr Glasspool I think it’s crucial to continue encouraging new GP trainees. Without new doctors this essential specialty will never be fixed and the vicious cycle of ever-increasing balls to juggle for dwindling numbers of GPs will continue. Maybe I am too optimistic but it doesn’t seem a lost cause yet. Perhaps if the GPs from the event in Hull, and others like them, could make themselves better heard over the blanket of negativity that currently exists then GP trainee numbers might begin to rise again. A little positivity could go a long way.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2015