I often tell the medical students I meet that they should consider general practice
“I am sorry to trouble you, but she says she’s bedbound and would rather die than have further chemo.”
Weeks later, I find myself addressing students about a career in medicine. One group contains high school students and the other incoming medical students. The landscape of medicine is unrecognisable since my student days, but some things haven’t changed a bit.This is a good starting point because without liking, and wanting, to help people, you can’t care about their hernia, schizophrenia or cancer. Every aspiring doctor should want to help people, so this intention never feels worn.
I can’t help but note that of the hundreds of students I meet, hardly anyone wants to be a GP. After all, these are young people whose most likely productive contact has been with their GP. Many have thankfully not needed to set foot inside a hospital, let alone seen a brain surgeon, foot surgeon or oncologist in action.in healthcare. Specialists are growing at a much higher rate than GPs, with a resulting skew in employment that serves neither patients well nor society.
We often say that general practice is so poorly remunerated that no one cares for it and, since pay is linked to prestige, why should any ambitious doctor settle for less? But while neurosurgeons andmay inhabit opposite ends of the pay scale, this comparison is flippant and attributing career choice to a question of money alone is reductionist.
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