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Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care

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Teaching Seminar 16.04.18

Speakers: Dr John Barber

Title: Facilitators and barriers to teaching undergraduate medical students in primary care: The GPs' perspective.

Abstract: Some medical schools are experiencing an increasing challenge to recruit GP teachers in practices facing increasing, competing demands from service and simultaneous expansion of postgraduate training.  The length and quality of medical students' exposure to primary care influences their choice of specialty so failure to recruit and retain GP teachers threatens NHS England's aim to increase GP numbers by 5000 GPs by 2020.There has been no research on UK GP motivation to teach since the 1990s.We seek to identify and understand contemporary motivators and barriers for primary care engagement with undergraduate education in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 25 GP teachers at four UK Medical Schools representing urban and rural locations and modern and more traditional curricula. Three participant groups were purposively sampled: GPs who have recently commenced teaching in a practice or are increasing their commitment, established GP teachers and GPs who have recently stopped teaching or are decreasing their commitment. This study highlights crucial factors which influence GPs' decisions to teach undergraduates including the negative effect workload pressures and inadequate funding are having on undergraduate education in primary care.