The battle to retain GPs: the importance of undergraduate training in general practice

Fisher and McDermott1 highlight workplace culture as critical for GP retention but largely overlook the preparation of future practitioners for the challenges of a career in primary care. Likewise, the Royal College of General Practitioners’ paper Fit for the Future calls for “induction and career support programmes for early career GPs” but omits the importance of undergraduate education in preparing doctors to work in primary care.2Despite the 2016 Wass report,3 there has been little progress in tackling the low status of general practice in UK medical schools.4 This situation is likely to worsen with the forthcoming national medical licensing assessment (MLA) and anticipation of a league table of medical school performance.5 With its single best answer format and focus on diagnoses, tests, and drugs, the MLA only engages students in the components of general practice that overlap with diagnostic hospital medicine.5 It also drives a focus on events (such as…
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