TY - JOUR T1 - Not such friendly banter? GPs and psychiatrists against the systematic denigration of their specialties JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 508 LP - 509 DO - 10.3399/bjgp16X687169 VL - 66 IS - 651 AU - Maureen Baker AU - Simon Wessely AU - Daniel Openshaw Y1 - 2016/10/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/66/651/508.abstract N2 - It’s just banter. That’s how people justify denigration of one medical specialty by another, and that’s what the majority of medical students believe; all specialties go through it and all specialties do it; it’s character building; it’s just a bit of fun.1But one consequence is that medical students are being put off entering certain specialties because of the stigma attached to them.1This is dangerous. It has been shown that this adversely affects two specialties more than others: general practice and psychiatry.1 And if we don’t have enough GPs or psychiatrists, the NHS will certainly fail, and it will be our patients who suffer most.All in the name of ‘banter’.Humans are complex, both in body and mind, so we need different medical specialties. We need people to look after our hearts; specialise in our skin; physically fix us, with tools, when we are broken. But as we strive for parity of esteem between physical and mental health, we need people to understand our minds, and vitally we need people to oversee the ‘whole person’, dealing with health conditions before they become too serious, and appropriately navigating patients through the NHS.It has been shown that denigration leads to medical students rejecting certain specialties.1 With general practice and psychiatry repeatedly shown to suffer most denigration, it’s safe to assume that these are the specialties most negatively impacted.This correlates with figures from Health Education England (HEE). In 2015, 604 GP and 91 psychiatry placements were left unfilled: the highest of any medical specialties.2In general practice we are expecting improvements this year, partly due to the … ER -