Twelve tips for the recruitment and retention of general practitioners as teachers of medical students

Abstract

Background: Primary care physicians have become a fundamental aspect of teaching in modern medical school curricula worldwide with a significant proportion of undergraduate teaching taking place in primary care. There are calls for this to increase with more patient care occurring in the community but teaching capacity in primary care is a potential challenge. Medical schools, therefore, need strategies to be able to increase their primary care physician teaching workforce.

Methodology: We asked all Heads of General Practice Teaching in UK medical schools to share their three top tips for recruiting and retaining GPs to teach undergraduate students. The majority (two-thirds) of medical schools responded and we have summarized the answers into the following twelve tips.

Results: Although the twelve tips are varied and comprehensive, including broad topics such as finances and training, one clear theme running through the majority of tips is good communication and relationships between education teams and GPs.

Conclusions: The solutions to recruiting and retaining GPs to teach undergraduate medical students are clearly multifactorial and complex. We hope that by presenting suggestions from UK GP heads of teaching as these twelve tips provides some helpful, thought-provoking ideas and inspiration for both the UK and internationally.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank and acknowledge the GP heads of teachers who responded to the survey. The ideas presented are a summary of their thought-provoking and interesting ideas.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Notes on contributors

Hugh Alberti, MD, FRCGP, MClinEd, is a GP in Middlesbrough and head of GP teaching at Newcastle medical school. His interests are around GP undergraduate teaching and influences on students selecting GP as a career choice. He leads a team of qualified GPs and GP trainees.

Jane Atkinson, MRCGP, is a recently qualified GP working new Newcastle. She has recently completed an innovative extended training post at Northumbria GP training program in commissioning and education during which time she undertook the work of this study.