1. MEDICAL STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF GENERAL PRACTICE
MEDICAL STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF GENERAL PRACTICE
AS AN INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATING CAREER
SAHOTA, K, ALBERTI, H, TANG, E,
School of Medical Education, Newcastle University
Background
Aims
Primary care remains a cornerstone of many healthcare systems yet recruitment of medical students into General Practice (GP) is a challenge internationally1. It has been postulated that one possible factor for this recruitment crisis is students not perceiving GP to be an intellectually stimulating career2.However, to our knowledge this has not been studied in depth from a medical students perspective. It has also been suggested that choosing a secondary care specialty may be due to a deeper interest in the pursuit of academic medicine.
A current systematic review on interventions to encourage careers in academic medicine found that interventions in undergraduate medical education were little studied3. Recent research indicates that students do not perceive GP to offer the variety of academic challenge they aspire to1,4.
This project builds on previous published work on medical students perceptions of GP but focuses on the aspect of intellectual and academic perceptions and we plan to uniquely compare and contrast our results with a similar study conducted in Calgary, Canada.
To explore medical student’s perceptions of GP as an intellectually stimulating career, including whether students believe these perceptions can be changed or challenged and how.
To explore medical student perceptions of GP as an academic career.
We aim to use our findings to produce recommendations to aid GP recruitment. This is both locally to inform training scheme development as well as internationally and informing the development of curricular interventions to promote academic GP.
Results
A preliminary analysis of the data revealed 13 major codes with 26 sub-codes. These were grouped into the 5 broad categories below:
Methods NO
“Short training”
“GP’s have to do the more social
aspects”
“Don’t see GP’s teaching the
more scientific based stuff”
YES
”Have to know breadth..”
“Broad knowledge”
“Need to know everything”
“GP’s are really clever”
Figure 1:
Recruitment
We undertook two focus groups of clinical medical students at Newcastle Medical School (n=13). The first focus group consisted of eight fourth year medical students on their selected student component rotation in primary care. The second focus group were formed of five final year students during their primary care rotation. Sampling was purposive and we aimed to recruit students with varying views on GP.
Data Collection
A qualitative approach from an interpretivist paradigm was used and data collection and analysis was iterative.
An interview schedule was devised, informed by literature on medical student perceptions of GP and academic career choice, specifically within GP.
Questions explored with the students included:
What are student’s perceptions of GP as an intellectually stimulating career?
Where have these perceptions come from?
How might these perceptions be changed or challenged?
What are your perceptions about GP as an academic career?
Can you think of any factors that would make GP attractive as an academic career?
What barriers exist which work against academic GP as an intellectually stimulating career?
Analysis
The focus group discussions were recorded, anonymously transcribed and independently read. A preliminary analysis included identifying codes to produce initial categories. Later we aim to thematically analyse the data and group codes into themes, consistent with the approach of Braun and Clark5 and with the aid of Nvivo version 12.
Ethics and Funding
Ethics approval was granted by the Research Management Group and funding was secured from the Educational Research, Development and Practice unit at Newcastle University.
“Hospital doctors..oh haha
..low level of knowledge”
“Concept that GPs do the low levels
Of work”
””Have to be a specialist..
more respect”
“Isolating”
“Treadmill”
Good work-life balance”
“What people settle for”
“Social research”
“Less aware”
“Never heard GP’s talk about it”
“GP’s are generalists”
“g”
Academia is..
“research”, “teaching”, “science”, “keeping on top of advancements”.
”GP limits you in certain aspects”
“Not the first thing I think of..but not a bad thing”
“Creating a pathway into academic GP like for hospital”
Conclusion
Initial results suggest that medical students perceive GPs needing to be very clever, but have mixed views on whether GP as a career is intellectually stimulating or not, or has an academic focus.
This may influence medical students choice of future career, however, how important this is in influencing potential career choice is still unknown. Further research is planned with further focus groups of students in Newcastle. We will also uniquely compare and contrast our results with a similar study conducted in Calgary, Canada.
References
Wass V, Gregory S, Petty-Saphon K. By choice—not by chance: supporting medical students towards future careers in general practice 2016 [cited 2017 July 12]. Available from:
Reid K, Alberti H. Medical students’ perceptions of general practice as a career; a phenomenological study using socialisation theory. Education for Primary Care
Darbyshire D, Gordon M, Baker P, Agius S, McAleer S. Systematic review of interventions to encourage careers in academic medicine. Medical Teacher. 2018:1-7.
Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), Medical Schools Council (MSC). Destination GP Medical students' experiences and perceptions of general practice [cited 2018 April 30]. Available from:
Braun V, Clarke V. What can “thematic analysis” offer health and wellbeing researchers? International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being. 2014;9.