The other end of the telephone.

The General Medical Council advocates a broad experience in general professional training for doctors intending to be specialists and has indicated that a period in general practice would be beneficial. Trainee posts are usually available only to those planning a career in general practice. The Education Committee for General Practice, of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, however, has recently made available a small number of trainee posts for doctors planning to remain in the hospital service. I was fortunate to spend six months of my two year paediatric rotation in general practice in the Northumberland market town of Hexham. When the suggestion was first made that I should apply for such a post, I treated it with a great deal of caution. I feared members of a future interviewing panel would shake their heads over my curriculum vitae and ask me searching questions about why I had taken my foot off the ladder of career paediatrics. The panel was sure to follow the conventional view at my medical school that it was unhelpful, even detrimental, to supplement hospital training with experience in general practice. My exposure to three aspects of practice convinced me that this view was misguided. These were the decision of referral, the management of trivial problems, and the development of a rapport with my patients.