Supporting medical students towards future careers in general practice: a quantitative study of Irish medical schools

Problem

Health systems globally are producing insufficient numbers of general practitioners (GPs) to sustain workforce requirements. In Ireland it is estimated that by 2025 the shortfall of GPs could be as high as 1,380, from a current workforce of 3,923. The importance of medical schools in promoting general practice as a career is well acknowledged, but remains relatively under-explored.

Approach

We determined the proportions of EU medical graduates from each of the six Irish medical schools who applied to GP Specialist training in Ireland over the period 2017-21 inclusive. The Spearman rank correlation was used to examine the correlations between the proportions of graduate entrants, the number of weeks spent directly on GP placement teaching at each medical school (known as authentic GP teaching) and the proportions of applicants, to GP training, from each medical school.

Findings

The number of applicants increased each year from 286 in 2017, to 685 in 2021 – a 2.4 fold increase. Between 2017-2021 inclusive, the average annual percentage of EU graduates applying to the national GP Training Program (n=1,302) ranged from 25-55% for each of the six Irish medical schools - a 2.2 fold difference between schools. There was a strong correlation between the average annual percentage of EU graduates applying to the ICGP Training Program with the proportions of graduate entrants, but this did not reach statistical significance, (r=0.81; p=0.20) and a weak, insignificant correlation with the number of weeks spent in authentic GP teaching (r=0.2; p>0.50).

Consequences

We found a marked difference in the proportions of EU graduates, from the six medical schools, opting for a career in general practice, and the reasons for this difference merits further investigation. Increased proportions of graduate students possibly increases the likelihood that a medical graduate will pursue GP as a career. Further national and international work is required to inform how best medical schools can support the generation of tomorrows general practitioners.