Preregistration house officers in general practice

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Abstract
Objectives: To obtain from house officers who had rotated through general practice in their preregistration year their views about their experience; and, separately, to compare the overall hours and type of work performed by hospital based and general practice based house officers. Design: Postal questionnaire; and self recording of working hours and duties during four consecutive weeks. Setting: Inner London teaching hospital and nearby general practice. Participants: 28 preregistration house officers in general practice, 1981–91; and 12 preregistration house officers, four each in medicine, surgery, and general practice. Results: 26 out of 28 questionnaires were returned (response rate 93%). Twelve respondents were following or thinking of following a career in general practice. Twenty five respondents were satisfied with the clinical and educational aspects of the general practice rotation and would recommend the rotation, and 25 thought four months was about the right length of time in general practice. With regard to hours and type of work performed, hospital based house officers worked on average 55.5 hours a week (excluding on call), with an average of 12.5 hours (22.5%) spent in clinical activities; general practice based house officers worked about 41 hours a week, of which 24 hours (58%) were in clinical activities. House officers in hospital received less than one hour's specific teaching a week; those in general practice received nearly three hours' a week. Conclusions: A preregistration rotation in general practice is a popular alternative to the hospital based rotation. Although this is a limited study, other medical schools should consider introducing general practice options for preregistration house officers. Key messages Doctors who rotated through the scheme in the first 10 years and responded to a questionnaire thought that all medical schools should offer rotations in general practice All but one of the respondents thought that four months in general practice was “about right” and did not miss the four months in hospital Further investigations of general practice rotation showed that general practice based house officers worked fewer hours than hospital based house officers but did more clinical work, received more individual teaching, and had more responsibility Other medical schools should consider introducing rotations in general practice