The Career Journey of a GP

Is general practice the right path for you?

So, you’re a Foundation Doctor and starting to think about your preferred speciality. You’re considering General Practice but you want to know, is this the right choice for me? Well, we certainly think so. Below are some of the things we think make General Practice a brilliant career to consider.

Being a generalist

Perhaps you can’t whittle down your clinical preferences because you enjoy a mixture. As a GP, you’ll see a wide array of ailments, illnesses, and disease. You’ll develop knowledge in many different areas and you won’t just be a ‘jack of all trades’, you’ll master many of them too.

Developing a specialism

Ok, ok, you’re really enjoying being a generalist but perhaps you’re a few years into life as a GP and you feel you want something more to get your teeth stuck into. Welcome to life as a GP with a special interest! You can develop specialisms that can either form part of your role in practice or you can take up additional roles outside of your core role in an increasingly common portfolio career.

The team ethic

Working as a hospital Doctor can be a lonely existence at times, at least from an interaction with other Doctors’ viewpoint. Unless you’re one of the last bastions working as a single-hander, working in General Practice will see you working alongside other GPs on a daily basis, sharing best practice, clinical support, interesting cases, and what was on the TV last night, amongst other things.

Family-friendly

Perhaps what’s most important is time with your family, your children. Whilst it’s far from a 9-5, General Practice won’t have you working nights, weekends or bank holidays and factoring in study leave and bank holidays, you’ll normally have over 8 weeks of leave to spend with your loved ones and every weekend to boot.

Family

Continuity of care

Contrary to what you read in the papers (if you’ve not completely boycotted mainstream media by now), continuity of care is alive and kicking in many parts of the country. Do you want to really get to know your patients, and their families, to take them on their illness journey and genuinely impact their life over a period of years, perhaps decades? General Practice is the role for you if so.

Earning potential

GP pay is a polarising topic and rightly so, but there is the ability to earn well as a GP, in some cases very well. With sessional rates on the increase, six-figure whole time equivalent salaries for Salaried GPs are more and more common and whilst much maligned in the media, Partner earnings are still attractive in many cases with Pulse reporting in September 2022 that the average full-time Partner earnings were a healthy £142,000. Covid payments of course have to be taken into account, but these figures show you don’t have to be a Consultant to earn well in medicine.

Money