How To Be a GP
Have you ever wondered how
GP`s are trained?
Hopefully this little page
will tell you !
The first step to being a GP is to get
yourself into a Medical School. Some of these are parts of bigger
Universities, such as Bristol or Manchester, others, mainly those
in London, are medical schools alone and do not accept students
studying other subjects. Entrance to medical school is decided
at the A level stage and students can usually choose whether to
go straight into their Medical studies or to take a year or so
out first doing other things before entering. The Doctors at the
manor clinic are a mixture of Doctors who have come from both
sorts of Medical School.
The courses at different Medical
schools vary slightly but generally follow a similar pattern.
The first two or three years are spent in lecture theatres, labs
and teaching sessions whilst the second two or three years are
spent in a hospital seeing patients and learning in a more `on
the job` way. Most courses last five years in total.
The first couple of years involve
lots of sitting in lectures writing down and memorising facts
and taking exams on them every so often. Much time is also spent
in laboratories performing experiments, looking at slides under
microscopes and often doing tests on each other. It is at this
time too that medical students are divided into groups to dissect
a body to learn about what bit goes where. Useful for surgeons
but less useful for budding GP`s.
Once the students have grasped
the basics they are let loose onto the hospital wards. They are
given more lectures from the various Consultants in the hospitals
and see patients as they arrive in the hospital before they are
seen by the Doctors. They see the patients first, take a history
of what is wrong, guess what the right treatment will be and then
pass the story on to the Doctor in charge of them who tells them
if they were correct or not. The years in the hospital consist
of the student spending a few weeks in each department, taking
exams then moving on. The student might spend a few weeks in an
eye department, then a few in casualty, then a few in a childrens
ward and so on. In this way they build up a picture of the various
parts of the hospital and how they work.
At the end of all this, the students
are faced with the dreaded final exams...If they pass, they are
then allowed to call themselves Doctors and can start on their
Medical careers...
All Doctors must next get through
the first, hardest year of their careers doing so called `house
jobs`. They are the frontline in the hospital and see all patients
coming in as emergencies. They look after the patients for most
of the time and are responsible for making sure they have the
right treatment and tests. Their senior Doctors keep an eye on
what they do but the first Doctor to be called if there is a problem
is the House officer. Sleep is something they only get if they
are lucky when they are on duty. ( Which may mean working continuously
from 0900 on Friday morning to 1800 on Monday evening with no
sleep or break at all.)
It is only once past this year,
six years after starting out to train as a Doctor, that the career
paths split up and GP`s to be move down a different route to Consultants
etc.
To become a GP a Doctor has to
embark on a three year period of training. The first two years
consists of a series of jobs as `Senior House Officers` in various
departments of the hospital for six months at a time. The last
year involves two six month posts in different GP practices as
a `Trainee GP`
For the first two years, the
trainee GP is the frontline Doctor in the hospital in several
different specialities, for example six months each of Casualty,
Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Geriatrics, although the exact jobs
can vary slightly. The Senior House officer looks after the patients
in the hospital getting help from Consultants and more senior
staff when they get stuck. In this way, the budding GP gets experience
of many different illnesses and problems. (So as you will see,
many of the Doctors, for example in hospital casualty departments
have less training than the average GP who has usually been through
their jobs on his way to becoming a GP.).
It is only after these two years
that the Doctor gets to work in a GP surgery. For the next year
he is a `Trainee GP` or GP Registrar . He sees patients in a GP
surgery but has a qualified GP as a `Trainer` who is always on
the end of the phone to be rung up if there is a problem or if
the trainee GP gets stuck.
It is only after this final year
that the budding GP is allowed to sit a further set of examinations
which include being videotaped in the surgery and only after passing
these exams can he work as a fully qualified GP.
So there you go. That is how
you become a GP. Total time from leaving school to getting in
a surgery is usually about NINE YEARS. So now you know!
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