GPs say shortage of space in their premises threatens their ability to teach medical students.
Medical student placements in general practice are vital for the future of the primary care workforce but pressure on premises space in GP surgeries is affecting GP teaching capacity, according to research on the scale of the challenges facing GPs who teach medical students.
The research team, led by Dr Richard Darnton, Director at the University of Cambridge’s GP Education Group, surveyed 120 East of England GP practices who host medical student placements. The GPs responsible for teaching in each practice were asked for the four main challenges they faced when delivering medical student teaching placements, from a list of sixteen possible challenges.
We found that after practice workload, lack of premises space currently appears to be the biggest threat to medical student teaching in GP practices – Dr Richard Darnton and Sam Amey, authors, University of Cambridge
Clinical/practice workload was picked by 92 out of the 114 practices who responded and 63 practices picked lack of space in the practice. These were by far the most commonly selected challenges to delivering placements.
The nature and prevalence of threats to medical student placement capacity in primary care: a survey of east of England GP practices. Darnton, Richard; Amey, Sam; Brimicombe, James, in BJGP Open. Published online November 2022
Some of the GPs in the survey suggested that space pressures were exacerbated by the need to accommodate more clinicians – especially the advanced practitioners increasingly employed by primary care networks to help shoulder the clinical management of patients.
Read the research
, and The nature and prevalence of threats to medical student placement capacity in primary care: a survey of East of England GP practices. BJGP Open 29 Nov 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGPO.2022.0127
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Lucy Lloyd. Communications, Primary Care Unit
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Nick Saffell, University of Cambridge