CMT before GP?

Hi all,
I'm a 5th year medical student in the UK. Was talking to an F2 today about career routes etc. He said that a lot of medics are doing core medical training before applying for GPST, as spending as much time in hospital before GP makes you a better doctor. Also having the MRCP under your belt makes it easier to do an F3 year abroad (I haven't ruled this out, the same as most medics atm)

I've not really heard this before so just wondered if anyone else has heard of or has different views on this?

I'm pretty sure that I want to be a GP at the moment. I can see the value in getting more hospital experience but it just seems like a lot of extra time and money if this value is minimal. I know that it's ultimately dependent on my motivations and goals but would just be helpful to hear any different sides of the argument!

Reply 1

Caponester

10

Original post by dandylion1

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In similar position to yourself but have already more or less committed myself to doing a GP ACF after AFP and will therefore be steering clear of 2 years (maybe 3 by the time we get there???) of CMT hell. My F2 year is shaping up to be very 'acute' so think I'll sit the FRCEM primary and take it from there. Maybe you could do the same for MRCP part 1?

With regards to wanting more time in hospital, maybe look into deaneries that offer a four year GP training programme or some sort of out of programme experience? I know most of the West of Scotland GP programmes give you the chance to do 6-12 months of medical jobs (usually gerries and AMU) on top of other GP hospital jobs like paeds and psych. Could maybe squeeze your MRCP in before ST3 if you chose that route?

No clue about the value of MRCP for doing an F3 abroad? Surely very few would have done paces by the end of F2?

Reply 2

dandylion1

OP

6

Original post by Caponester

No clue about the value of MRCP for doing an F3 abroad? Surely very few would have done paces by the end of F2?

Ah apologies, he may very well have meant simply taking the MRCP part 1 for that particular option!

Thanks for the reply, apart from knowing that I want to enter GP training I haven't explored the various routes into it very well so I suppose this has done well to highlight the need for a good ol' think :colonhash:

Reply 3

nexttime

22

That seems entirely unnecessary to me. Some people do it yes, but my impression was it was more to delay the decision because they weren't 100% set on GP yet. Taking it upon yourself to draw out the time until you can settle down, take a £75,000+ pay hit (relative to what you'd be paid for two years as a fully qualified GP) because you personally believe GP training is inadequate... you'd have to feel pretty strongly to justify that.

If you're going to do CMT i would do MRCP part 1 during FY2. If you're going to do GP I wouldn't.

Reply 4

dandylion1

OP

6

Original post by nexttime

That seems entirely unnecessary to me. Some people do it yes, but my impression was it was more to delay the decision because they weren't 100% set on GP yet. Taking it upon yourself to draw out the time until you can settle down, take a £75,000+ pay hit (relative to what you'd be paid for two years as a fully qualified GP) because you personally believe GP training is inadequate... you'd have to feel pretty strongly to justify that.

If you're going to do CMT i would do MRCP part 1 during FY2. If you're going to do GP I wouldn't.

Yep that was kind of my thinking too. Reassuring to know that I haven't missed something here! The paranoid student in me was suddenly worried that I'd be competing with all of these applicants who had completed CMT haha. Need to stop taking everyone older than me's word as gospel!

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 5

nexttime

22

Original post by dandylion1

Yep that was kind of my thinking too. Reassuring to know that I haven't missed something here! The paranoid student in me was suddenly worried that I'd be competing with all of these applicants who had completed CMT haha. Need to stop taking everyone older than me's word as gospel!

Maybe having would give you some advantage, I don't really know... but its not like GP is very competitive anyway. Pretty sure there's a substantial portion of training jobs that were left unfilled last year, and its the only speciality you can get into without an interview.

Basically, you definitely don't need to do CMT if you don't want to.

Reply 6

junior.doctor

18

Agreed, most people I know who have done CMT / other and then gone on to do GP, have mainly done it this way because of career idea changes / struggles to get ST3+ posts rather than actively intending to GP afterwards from the outset.
MRCP1 won't be of particular use / advantage to you as an F3. Only do it if you are completely sure that CMT is where you're at, otherwise it's an expensive venture.

CMT before GP?

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