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KCE Reports 90 Making General Practice Attractive: Encouraging GP attraction and Retention 61
to a numerus clausus and the selection process is either with a formal examination
(with strong impact of positive sciences like biology and mathematics) or after the first
year (with comparable filter). The GP students have a different profile than the future
specialist students. They pay more interest to human matters than to scientific subjects.
An optimal selection process oriented towards selection of students that like to deal
with human aspects of medicine and who like the specific components of general
practice (i.e. holistic care, uncertainties etc) should be taken into account.
3.8.3.2 Reframe the perception of the discipline during the core curriculum
Academic departments of general practice should strengthen their position in the
faculties. Teaching general practice in the core curriculum is not optimal according to
the interviewees. This finding should be compared with the perception of GP teachers.
Moreover, GP teachers have to be involved in the first years of the curriculum, not only
for the “psychosocial” view on the patient but also for the aspects linked to clinical care.
Furthermore, this study shows that clerkship experiences and role models are
particularly decisive for the decision processes of the candidates. GP departments can
do a better job for example by selecting the best practices for student training.
Clerkships in family medicine/general practice should be obligatory for all physicians
regardless of their future specialty.
3.8.3.3 Address the position and income gap of GP in the health system
It is obvious that future GP students value the position of the family physician in the
health care system. The quantitative analysis reveals that according to the students, a
patient list is needed, that future GP's value a gate keeping role for the general
practitioners and impact on the management of patients in the hospital (secondary
care), that they are in favor of support for the continuity of care ("general practitionerposts"
for out of hours care), and professional practice-support like for instance the
"practice assistant".
Finally, future general practitioners are in favor of less discrepancy between the incomes
of GPs and the incomes of other specialists.
3.9 SUMMARY: MOTIVATIONS OF 7TH YEAR STUDENTS TO
CHOOSE (OR NOT) THE GP PROFESSION
The following factors were found to influence the specialty choice of the students
before the medical school:
• the parent’s medical profession and mother’s highest educational
qualification are predictors of the specialty;
• about one third to half the number of medical students have a role
model either among their parents or near family;
• the combination of intellectual challenge and dealing with people makes
medicine study attractive;
• about one third of the future general practitioners had the idea of
becoming a GP when starting medical education: therefore selection
processes at the start of the core curriculum may be important.
• During the curriculum, the following factors play a role on the specialty
choice of the students:
• non-GP students perceive the GP profession as having difficult working
conditions, few intellectual challenges and a lot of routine tasks,
• students do not have many contacts with general practice and general
practice is offered late in the core curriculum,
• general practice teachers seem not to play the role of ambassador of
the discipline,