To the Editor: There is a significant shortage of general practitioners in Australia, and many of those in practice are nearing retirement. The government has belatedly realised the need to train more GPs and in the past few years has dramatically increased university places for medical students. Coupled with this increase in numbers is the need for medical students to gain more of their education in general practice, where patients with many of the common medical problems are now managed. This has increased the pressure on universities to place medical students in general practice, and they are having difficulty finding enough willing and capable GPs to train their students.

Paying GPs more to teach medical students might help. However, students’ experience of general practice needs to be positive if they are to be persuaded to become GPs themselves in the future, and a positive experience is more likely when the supervising GP is not rushed and can provide students with hands-on practice. Therefore, apart from increasing financial incentives, it is important to reduce “red tape” for training medical students and to free GPs’ time for teaching.

A positive step would be to provide an extra payment to the GP on top of the consultation fee for each patient seen by a student under the GP’s supervision, similar to the extra payment for a consultation with a pensioner. This would contrast with the current situation, where a GP who supervises students must fill out forms and wait for a PIP (practice incentive payment) many months later.

Another step would be to make accreditation less onerous for GPs who regularly provide clinical experience for students. Adequate continuing medical education (CME) points should be given for providing quality training without the GP needing to “jump through hoops”.

If the medical student training crisis is to be resolved, then these issues need urgent attention.