A national investigation on status of general practitioners in China

Abstract

Objective To learn general account for general practitioners all over the country to provide evidence for related policy decision-making. Methods Questionnaire survey and focus group discussion were conducted in health administrations of 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities under direct jurisdiction of the State Council, as well as Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, to collect information about their qualification examinations or evaluations, education and training, registration for permit to practise medicine and other related-policies for general practitioners (GPs). Results ①By October 2007, national qualification examinations for medium-level health professional title of general practice were taken place in all 32 province-level regions. Appraisal for senior professional title of general practice was carried out in 13 province-level regions. There are, in nationwide total, 10 670 GPs, 9826 of them with medium level professional title and 844 with senior professional one, and 97.0% of those with senior professional title working in east part of the country. ②Post training for GPs has been conducted in 31 provinces-level regions and 112 528 GPs received training. Standardized training for GPs has been developed in 9 province-level regions, and 1474 GPs have been trained.③Registration for permit to practise medicine has been developed in 19 provinces-level regions, including all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities under direct jurisdiction of the State Council in east part of the country. There are 6321 physicians registered as GPs for permit to practise medicine all over the country. Conclusions ①Workforce of GPs has commenced to develop, and related policies have preliminarily been in place, but unbalanced among east, central and west parts of the country; ②Workforce of GPs is in short and unstable, with poor quality, non-standardized appellation and inconsistent statistics; ③Qualification for junior professional title for GPs has not been set and appraisal for senior professional title of GPs has been conducted in only a few areas; ④Registration as GPs for permit to practise medicine has been implemented in a few areas with small number of GPs registered; ⑤Effectiveness of post training for GPs is not satisfactory, and standardized training is very difficult to develop; and ⑥Government should further increase financial input for development of GPs suitable for the country. Key words: Questionnaires; Interviews; Community health services; General practitioners