As GPs with experience going back more than 50 years, we agree with Taylor et al about the serious implications of the loss of general practice as an independent identifiable discipline within medical schools.1 Many departments now reflect the wide base of academic disciplines that usefully inform and underpin general practice and its applied research base. However, this seems to have run in parallel with a loss of identity, compounded by a lack of consistently accessible academic career pathways and core funding to support academic GP careers and university appointments.
Other concerns include the continuing dominance of medical research funding by the bioscience- and disease-specific agendas, rather than more person- and population-centred topics; partial rather than whole-system funding approaches; and variable advocacy over time. The RCGP has supported the aim to have a GP academic department in every medical school, the importance of visible role models for our specialty, and the increase of tariff for teaching by GPs. But, perhaps inevitably, there is often more focus on the generic GP workforce than the needs of academic general practice. And our gathering of evidence of problems has not yet led to solutions.
We therefore hope that the authors of this important article will work with members of the Society for Academic Primary Care and leads at the RCGP to develop a clear strategy that can form the basis for advocacy for outcomes. These would see every medical school have a substantive presence of academic GPs, and every GP with the opportunity to build an academic career if they are willing and able to do so. A minimum requirement would be an uplift of academic core options linked with GP training and the early years of practice; and a clear commitment to PhD funding and supervision support for GPs in that period. More anon!
- © British Journal of General Practice 2025
