Attitudes and experiences of GP registrars towards undergraduate teaching: has anything changed?

Developing teaching skills is part of the RCGP curriculum for GP trainees [1], and it is thought that exposing medical students to GP role models can positively affect their career choices [2]. In 2015 Marshall and Alberti conducted a study looking into GP registrars’ experiences of teaching medical students [3]. They found overwhelmingly that trainees were keen to teach medical students but had minimal opportunities available [3]. They also found that more teaching opportunities were available in hospital posts than GP posts [3]. We conducted research to look into whether these disparities still exist. The aims of this project were to determine the current level of involvement in undergraduate medical education of GP registrars in the Northern Deanery and to establish if there has been any change or improvement compared to 2015. Ethics approval was granted from Newcastle University. We initially collected data by sending the same six-question survey that was used in 2015 to ST2 and ST3 GP registrars in the region, as well as GPs who were within 5 years of CCT. Overall, 104 GPs completed the survey; their responses were collated and analysed and compared to the results from 2015. There was a large disparity between the GP registrars’ desire to get involved with teaching, and the reality. Overall, 53% said they expected to have regular involvement with teaching medical students in their future career, but 85% reported having little or no involvement with teaching in their GP posts. Overall, 76% said they would like to have done more teaching. There continues to be a disparity in teaching opportunities between hospital and GP posts. Only 13.6% of trainees reported teaching at least monthly in GP posts, whereas in hospital posts 39% of trainees taught at least monthly. There has been little change since 2015. In GP posts 85% of trainees reported having little or no involvement in teaching (down from 91% in 2015). In hospital posts 62% reported having little or no involvement in teaching (down from 73% in 2015). These results show that in fact the most improvement in teaching opportunities has occurred in hospital posts, although the improvement is still minimal. Overall, there has been little improvement in GP registrars’ involvement in teaching of medical students since 2015, yet there is still a strong desire from them to have more opportunity to do so. Teaching opportunities continue to be significantly more limited in GP posts compared to hospital posts and so this is where any future work on improvements should be focussed. More work to understand why opportunities in GP posts are so limited should also be prioritised. GP practices continue to be stretched, both financially and timewise, so GP registrars could provide a cost-effective solution to delivering undergraduate medical education. Given the benefits to both practices and registrars, we strongly recommend that this area needs to be highlighted as a matter of great importance in future.