Expanding medical education in general practice.

General practitioners are major providers of medical education, with recent expansion at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, particularly in rural areas. General practitioners not only teach general practice, but also provide access to patients well suited to other aspects of medical school curricula. Teaching demands on GPs, already high, may increase with the addition of extra medical school places, additional medical schools, and expanding vocational GP training. The challenge for this growth is the low morale in the GP workforce; a feeling of being under valued, a lack of trained GP teachers, and poor remuneration for teaching. The teaching capacity of general practice is made up of several factors including: sufficient educationally experienced GPs, physical resources (eg. consulting rooms), educational resources (eg. internet access and a small library) and, in rural areas, accommodation and transport for learners. We report an exploration on the expansion of medical education in one well established training region. Method We used questionnaires and interviews to focus on specific emerging issues. Questionnaires were sent to all GPs in the local divisions of general practice, including rural public hospital generalists. We sought information about practice facilities, teaching experience, local estimates of the capacity to teach medical students and general practice registrars, perceived barriers to expansion, and how to overcome these barriers. The data were content analysed to derive themes for interview exploration of perceived barriers to expansion and how to address them. Interviews were conducted by telephone with a small sample of GPs chosen to represent urban and rural locations, and experienced and inexperienced GP teachers. Audiotapes of the interviews were transcribed before further content analysis.