Future For Family Doctors in Local Communities Depends on Attracting Students

The future for family doctors living in and serving local communities in sufficient numbers depends  on the capacity to attract medical students to pursue general practice, and to be able provide quality training experiences within general practice, according to AMA President, A/Prof Brian Owler.
A/Prof Owler said that, despite a range of initiatives being in place to support GPs and practices to be involved in teaching and training, the number of practices teaching medical students, pre-vocational doctors, and GP registrars remains relatively low.
“Only 10 to 20 per cent of vocationally registered GPs are teaching or are being accredited to teach,” A/Prof Owler said.
“The growing number of medical students and graduates is placing enormous pressure on existing teachers and practices to take on more students and trainees.
“The AMA has welcomed the May Budget decisions to provide $119 million to double the Practice Incentive Program Teaching Incentive for teaching medical students, and the $52.5 million in GP Infrastructure Grants, but this is not enough to build a long-term sustainable training program.
“A recent AMA survey shows that more needs to be done to address the barriers that discourage GPs and practices from being involved in teaching.
“Teaching students and GP registrars puts pressure on GPs to keep up with appointments, and this additional work goes largely unpaid and unrecognised.”
A third of the AMA survey respondents highlighted the following impediments to providing GP teaching:

• lack of up-skilling opportunities;


• lack of administrative support to manage placements and funding arrangements;


• lack of non-financial recognition from training bodies;


• lack of space;


• teaching accreditation requirements;


• additional effort not recognised; and


• lack of time to up-skill.

• continued funding for GP practice infrastructure projects that enhance training capacity;


• encouraging and supporting GPs to up-skill to enhance their teaching;


• streamlined accreditation requirements for teaching;


• working with training providers to recognise and reward teaching GPs; and


• supporting senior GP registrars to take on a greater role in teaching their junior peers.