Teaching general practice: a rallying flag for undergraduate education.

Abstract

Is general practice simply a vehicle for delivering the generic skills, knowledge, and professionalism that students must acquire during their time at medical school? Or is it an academic discipline that needs to be taught to medical students in its own right? For several years this has been the subject of much debate in the UK.1,2 Most specialties (for example psychiatry3 and obstetrics and gynaecology4) have produced their own national undergraduate curricula. General practice has been the odd one out; that was until October 2018 when the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) published Teaching General Practice: Guiding Principles for Undergraduate General Practice Curricula in UK Medical Schools .5 This is the closest we have come to having a national undergraduate curriculum for general practice in the UK. The UK is struggling to recruit new GPs. In 2016 Health Education England and the Medical Schools Council set up a task force, led by Professor Val Wass to examine the factors operating when graduates decide whether to train as GPs. Her final report By Choice, Not by Chance 6 identified several deterrents to graduates opting for general practice; among them the lack of a visible curriculum for general practice and the paucity of undergraduate teaching about general practice as an academic discipline. The RCGP and SAPC guidance takes a wide view of the term curriculum; it includes a list of the …