Young GPs satisfied with career choice

Most newly qualified and trainee general practitioners in the United Kingdom are happy with their choice both to be a doctor and to be a GP, according to research published in the British Journal of General Practice this month (2011;61:e645-9, doi:10.3399/bjgp11X601352).

The email survey of more than 2000 GP trainees and GPs who were within the first five years of qualification (12.4% response rate) found that 83% would choose to be a doctor again, 95% of whom would pick a career in general practice if they had their time again.

The most frequently cited reason for choosing general practice was that the specialty is compatible with family life (76.6% of women and 63.2% of men). Other reasons for choosing general practice were that it is a challenging and medically diverse discipline and it offers the opportunity to provide one to one care.

Nearly twice as many men as women cited having a good salary as their reason for choosing general practice (14.9% versus 7.8%), whereas women were more likely to cite negative experiences in hospital training (12.8% versus 9.8%).

Any politically driven changes to UK primary care that decrease the compatibility of general practice with having a family, such as an increase GPs’ out of hours commitments, could negatively affect GP recruitment, warn the authors.