Ouch! Was it something I said?
I wasn’t surprised to get a few grumpy emails from rural quarters after Fridays’ story on ACRRM’s initial approval for its training program.
Readers wouldn’t have had to read far between the lines to realise I think dividing general practice training into two is a bad move for general practice, and therefore the community, in the long term.
I’m happy to cop flack – it comes with the territory.
But some of the correspondents seemed to argue with a position we hadn’t taken, so let’s be clear.
• No, I don’t think urban practice is exactly the same as rural practice, and never have. (Mind you city practices aren’t all the same either, but let’s leave this to the side for now.) Many, by no means all, rural doctors do extra stuff that city docs now don’t choose to or don’t have an opportunity to do, eg obstetrics. As I understand it, for this and hospital work such as anaesthetics, those that do it are rightly rewarded for doing a great job, both financially and in job satisfaction terms. If they’re not paid well enough, let’s pay them more.
• Yes, as an urban GP, it does wear thin after a hard day at the surgery to hear supposed colleagues on the radio referring to urban general practitioners as pen-pushers and referral factories. It would get up the noses of my patients too, who are usually grateful for my time, attention and skill. People do actually get sick in the city too! By the way, I’ve never heard an urban doctor criticise the clinical skills of a rural colleague or belittle them for what they do in their surgeries.
• Good general practice, wherever it takes place, is not merely about procedures. I recall one rural GP offering to swap places with then RACGP president Professor Michael Kidd, implying the latter couldn’t cope in the country. Maybe not, but I suspect the correspondent may have also struggled prescribing anti-retrovirals in an inner city HIV and hepatitis C practice.
• No, 6minutes is not associated with the RACGP as suggested in one email, and has criticised the college in the past. We are not affiliated with any organisation.
The heart of this debate is not which group’s best or cleverest, but whether the overall community will be best served by rural and urban general practitioners having a totally separate training pathway.
Readers wouldn’t have had to read far between the lines to realise I think dividing general practice training into two is a bad move for general practice, and therefore the community, in the long term.
I’m happy to cop flack – it comes with the territory.
But some of the correspondents seemed to argue with a position we hadn’t taken, so let’s be clear.
• No, I don’t think urban practice is exactly the same as rural practice, and never have. (Mind you city practices aren’t all the same either, but let’s leave this to the side for now.) Many, by no means all, rural doctors do extra stuff that city docs now don’t choose to or don’t have an opportunity to do, eg obstetrics. As I understand it, for this and hospital work such as anaesthetics, those that do it are rightly rewarded for doing a great job, both financially and in job satisfaction terms. If they’re not paid well enough, let’s pay them more.
• Yes, as an urban GP, it does wear thin after a hard day at the surgery to hear supposed colleagues on the radio referring to urban general practitioners as pen-pushers and referral factories. It would get up the noses of my patients too, who are usually grateful for my time, attention and skill. People do actually get sick in the city too! By the way, I’ve never heard an urban doctor criticise the clinical skills of a rural colleague or belittle them for what they do in their surgeries.
• Good general practice, wherever it takes place, is not merely about procedures. I recall one rural GP offering to swap places with then RACGP president Professor Michael Kidd, implying the latter couldn’t cope in the country. Maybe not, but I suspect the correspondent may have also struggled prescribing anti-retrovirals in an inner city HIV and hepatitis C practice.
• No, 6minutes is not associated with the RACGP as suggested in one email, and has criticised the college in the past. We are not affiliated with any organisation.
The heart of this debate is not which group’s best or cleverest, but whether the overall community will be best served by rural and urban general practitioners having a totally separate training pathway.
posted by ozdocblog at 8:16 PM
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