I would like to start this letter by expressing my full solidarity with primary care professionals, who are receiving verbal and physical abuse from patients, and constant attacks by the mainstream media and government. While I sympathise with anybody struggling to access primary care services in the way that they need or want, and I have experienced this as a patient, the current rhetoric is hugely concerning and entirely inappropriate.
My intention is not to centre students in this issue, as the victims are the GPs and other professionals. But as a medical student and a future healthcare professional, the way GPs are being vilified makes me wonder about my future career path. This culture of hostility towards GPs is not an attractive prospect when considering specialty training. When the NHS is already facing a workforce crisis with a shortage of thousands of GPs,1 surely the aim should be to make the profession as enticing as possible for newcomers. This is not to say that GPs should be exempt from genuine criticism or accountability, but the deliberate misrepresentations in the media are far from this.
Even if medical students and junior doctors decide to abandon training in general practice and train in other specialties, there is no guarantee that other areas of the healthcare workforce won’t face similar treatment in the future. If GPs can be denigrated in this way after historically being seen as respected pillars of their communities, then I worry what our future careers may hold.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2021
