Exposure of Chinese undergraduates to general practice teaching

I read with interest the article by Alberti et al,¹ which investigates the correlation between general practice exposure and future choice of career. The study corresponds with the findings of a study in China by He and Wang.² In their study, the authors reported that, for undergraduate medical students, increased exposure to general practice education was associated with greater interest in general practice, and could possibly increase the general practice employment rate.

As a fourth-year medical student, I have seen that, in recent years, a lot of measures have been taken in Chinese medical schools in order to promote general practice, and a number of changes have already taken place. For example, Introductory Family Medicine was launched in 2002 as an elective course in Fudan University Shanghai Medical College, one of the elite medical schools in China, taking the lead in the reform of general practice education and residency training in China. In 2011, the Chinese government launched a plan to promote general practice,³ in an attempt to establish a nationwide general practice system by 2020. Shortly afterwards, Introductory Family Medicine became a mandatory course in most undergraduate medical schools.⁴ In particular, fourth-year medical students at Shanghai Medical College need to spend at least one session of authentic clinical placement in general practice at one of the primary healthcare facilities in Shanghai. Students like me who are familiar with tertiary medical centres, where doctors bear an overwhelming workload and patients experience long waits for very short appointments, are often surprised to see a good and rewarding relationship between patients and GPs, a totally different picture from the increasingly frequent reports of escalating doctor–patient tensions. It would be interesting to investigate how this increased exposure to general practice teaching would finally affect students’ career choice in a few years, when enough data is available.