Dr Hamed Khan, a board member of the RCGP South London Faculty, has long warned that the profession is heading for burnout.
As a lecturer at St George’s Medical School he sees the ‘disillusionment’ picked up by junior doctors and students.
To secure the future of the NHS we need the best doctors – and more of them – to enter general practice, he says, yet the number of applicants has declined.
Part of the solution, is that ‘GPs need to have a central decisive role in undergraduate medical education’ to pass on their unique skill set and role within the NHS.
‘GPs encapsulate the abilities which all doctors should ideally possess – which is why it is imperative that we have a key role in training them.’
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