Abstract
European general medical practice has long been challenged by a lack of physicians and a poor quality of their training. In response to this fact the European organisation of young general practitioners (VdGM) carried out a study examining the conditions and motivations of young general practitioners in seven European countries.
In this paper we present the results of the Czech portion of the study. The study used web-based questionnaires aimed at the target group of general practitioners in postgraduate training and physicians within five years of passing their qualification exams.
The results show that general practice is an attractive specialty in particular due to the opportunity of individual practice and the possibility of combining professional work with family life, while the most important factor against choosing this specialty was the insufficient remuneration of physicians during their postgraduate training. Our results also show that the existing postgraduate training sub-optimally covers certain areas important for general practitioners (management of GP surgery, holistic approach, work within a community).
The identified positives of the specialty point towards the possibility of targeting the presentation of general practice to attract new medical practitioners. At the same time the negatives should serve as a basis for changes to the postgraduate training curriculum so that it better fulfils the needs of young general practitioners