Has denigration of career choice within medicine improved in the UK over the last decade?

The UK General Medical Council (GMC) states in 'Good Medical Practice' that all doctors have a professional responsibility to work in collaboration and respect each other's skills and contributions to patient care. Despite this, it is widely accepted that denigration is occurring both between specialities and between primary and secondary care within the UK and internationally. Denigration of general practice/family medicine has been discussed and debated within medical education for a number of years and work carried out hoping to challenge the notion that students opting to take up training in this field are choosing to be 'just a GP.' The aim of our work was to take this further and adopt a longitudinal study to establish whether denigration has been persistent or diminished over time. GP Doctors in Training across the northern region were questioned about their experiences of denigration, with data collected through surveys over an eight-year period. Sadly, it appears the problem of inter-speciality denigration had not been abated. GP trainees continue to report experiencing negativity from their health care colleagues relating to their individual choice of career and the role of a GP more generally. The continuation of denigration towards general practice is alarming and raises concerns about the impact it may have on workforce morale. Family medicine (general practice) plays an integral role in the operation of health systems worldwide and yet recruitment of primary care clinicians has been, and continues to be, challenging. The reasons for this are complex and multifactorial but we need to challenge the notion that comments by clinicians and others is simply 'harmless banter'. Further work to deepen our understanding of the phenomenon would be beneficial and support the suggestion that we need to have a zero-tolerance attitude towards negative and derogatory comments made about any medical speciality.