Current situation of academic General practice on January 1, 2015: internal construction of the General practice academic sector

Background. The French general practice academic sector (GPAS) was born on 2004 with the postgraduate degree. It has been effective since the first regular teachers nominations in 2009. Objective. Making the GPAS's inventory on January 1st 2015, two years after the latest available inventory. Methods. Descriptive transversal study. Teachers workforce was collected by the National College of Teachers in General Practice. A questionnaire was sent to all of the 35 general practice departments (GPD). Students and teachers populations, teaching modalities, internships, resources and publications were collected, analyzed using median (interquartile range) or mean (standard error), and compared using Kruskall-Wallis test. Results. On 1st January 2015, 14 207 students were registered in the general practice postgraduate degree. The 147 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers put the residents/FTE teachers ratio to 97. Among the 7 863 internship supervisors, 4 432 held office in master degree for 5 101 internship positions and 7 067 held office in postgraduate degree. General practice (GP) academics published respectively 155 and 163 articles for the GPAS on 2013 and 2014. A statistically significant association between publications and residents/FTE teachers ratio was found. Discussion. Residents/FTE teachers ratio decrease and traineeship offer progression do not match students needs nor government objectives. Despite shared pedagogical approach, teaching modalities stay heterogeneous. Publications grow higher and better. Disparities are increasing between GPDs regarding workforce, resources and publications. Conclusion. The French GPAS follows a slow and progressive development. The lack of planning pointed out by the Druais report worsens disparities between GPDs and is a major concern for the future of GP training.