The Soft Edges - The Natural History of General Practice

Abstract

The natural history of a condition is the course it takes when it is left untreated. The natural history of the condition known as general practice consists of an untreated journey of several well defined stages. At first it resembles a post graduate grief reaction of disbelief. then denial. then depression and finally acceptance. One sets out thinking it is a career but it is not. A career is a succession of jobs arranged in a hierarchy of pay and prestige through which persons move in a reasonably ordered and predicted sequence. In general practice, when you start, you have already ended. What in fact happens is not a career path but a process of individual evolution. This evolution has the inevitability of an infectious process with an incubation period progressing to florid symptoms and culminating in a crisis followed by a convalescence.