GPs' working arrangements affect their own health care

Doctors are reluctant patients and tend not to seek help through the usual mechanisms when they become ill. A sense of duty to colleagues and patients encourages general practitioners to work through illness. They also feel a need to portray a healthy image, according to a qualitative study of 27 general practitioners by Thompson and colleagues (p 728). These factors, together with the fact that they are self employed with a partnership contract, mean that general practitioners tend to ignore illness in themselves and their colleagues. Since ill health can affect a doctor's professional performance, the importance of appropriate self care should be emphasised in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.

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Relevant Article

Challenge of culture, conscience, and contract to general practitioners' care of their own health: qualitative study

William T Thompson, Margaret E Cupples, Caryl H Sibbett, Delia I Skan, and Terry Bradley
BMJ 2001 323: 728-731. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]