We are a GP Clinical Teaching Fellow, GP ITP and Primary Care Subdean currently working in the School of Medical Education and are currently involved in a project which will be looking at GP trainees’ experience of expressed opinions from clinical teachers and whether these had any influence on their decision to train as a GP.

Currently there is a significant problem in GP training recruitment due to low filling of training posts.  One factor which is thought to potentially influence career choice is expressed opinions from clinical teachers about their chose specialities. A recent survey by the RCGP (Royal College of General Practitioners) of GP Heads at medical schools and medical students suggested there exists hostility from some clinical teachers towards training in certain specialities such as general practice. Anecdotal evidence from GP trainees similarly suggests that their a high prevalence of negativity from under graduate tutors and consultants towards general practice as a career choice.

We would like to find out more about the experiences of GP trainees of comments from clinical teachers about general practice. We are currently awaiting ethics approval to run a pilot study which will test the feasibility of using focus groups to interview GP trainees regarding any positive and negative comments made about their career choice to them by clinical teachers, and whether this had any influence on their decision to train as a GP.

New GP trainees from two training programmes within the North, where the recruitment crisis is particularly acute, will be invited to participate in focus groups. Trainees will then be asked using a semi-structured question framework about their experiences of comments made to them, both positive and negative, from clinical teachers during medical school, foundation training and GP training as well as if this had any influence on their decision to train as a GP. Interviews will be recorded and then professionally transcribed. Thematic qualitative analysis will then be performed and the results used to inform interested parties locally and nationally. If successful we would then hope to expand the project to interview larger students numbers.

We are additionally hoping in future to extend our project by interviewing non-GP speciality trainees regarding their experience of expressed opinions about GP as well as their own chosen speciality and whether this had any bearing on their decision to train in non-GP specialities.

We recently presented an outline of our proposed project in the form of a poster presentation at the Society of Academic Primary Care North conference in the Lake District which generated a good amount of interest.

Dr Joanna Hall, Dr Kym Merritt and Dr Hugh Alberti, School of Medical Education