Abstract
Winter is turning to Spring and a lot is going on in the world of general practice. A feast to digest: The NHS Long Term Plan, the RCGP Future vision of general practice, the Premises review and the Partnership review. I want to look at how we can thrive during this period of upheaval, but first a committee update.
Your AiT Committee brings together fellow trainees from all four nations of the United Kingdom. Committee members represent your interests within the RCGP and with outside organisations. All committee members give their time on a voluntary basis and our core mission is to maintain the highest standards of training to prepare us for general practice.
Your committee is dedicated to improving your training experience. For example, we are working closely with interested parties to improve GP trainee inductions, to hit the ground running and feel connected with the wider GP community; we are working with stakeholders to overhaul the trainee ePortfolio and make it work for us; we are closely involved in the Future vision of general practice campaign to conceptualise where we want the profession to be in 2030 and then formulate how to get there.
On behalf of the committee, I must thank all trainees who have engaged and generously given time to the focus groups and surveys linked to these projects. The fruits of these labours will be visible later this year.
And a quick plug – it is not too early to be thinking about the RCGP annual conference in October 2019. It is returning to the Liverpool Docks after 2 years. Take this opportunity to see the excellence in primary care and be inspired. Present your work and connect with the wider GP community. There will be AiT/First5® themed events running throughout, including socials. Most faculties have bursaries for AiTs. I hope to see you there.
Now back to thriving during training. Our training should not be about just surviving until qualification. We should all be thriving, not just during training, but afterwards too. However, something is not right when 5 years after qualifying around 40% of GPs no longer work substantively in the NHS.
Work is ongoing both within the college and the wider NHS to address this under the ‘wellbeing’ umbrella. Personally, I think we should care for ourselves better, so we can care better for others, and the systems we work in should help us achieve this. We will not last long in this profession if we limit our aspiration to just coping. That’s no way to live and leads to burn out. Limited aspirations impact on us, but also on those we care about most and our patients.
I strongly encourage all trainees to engage and be part of the conversation about this and other matters. If you want to get involved contact your local AiT representative and local faculty. Looking further ahead, if you would like to be a representative and you can commit the time, put yourself forward at the elections when they open later this year.
The landscape of general practice is changing. Through all the uncertainty, there will be opportunity and the future will always be ours to make. To leave you with a final thought from Confucius – ‘Those who think they can and those who think they can't, are both usually right’.