2017 Volume 40 Issue 4 Pages 168-175
Background: Internal medicine physicians are able to convert to "general practitioners" in the future.
Objective: To examine factors related with "career conversion to a general practitioner" conceived by hospital internal-medicine physicians specializing in organs/regions.
Materials and Method: A semi-structured interview was conducted for 20 internal-medicine physicians with their consent from November 2014 to November 2015. The verbatim records were analyzed with the modified grounded theory approach.
Results: The facilitating factors for career conversion consisted of "a career plan where characteristics of a general practitioner can be utilized", "high-quality training that combines practical conditions", and "diverse ways of working and a specialist-licentiate who has opportunities for learning".
On the other hand, the suppressive factors consisted of "a lack of understanding of general practitioners", "difficulties associated with re-training", and "a feeling of resistance toward comprehensiveness of general practitioners".
Conclusions: Career conversion to general practitioner by qualified internal-medicine physicians was suggested to be promoted by enhancing the meaningfulness of the general practitioner license, the training circumstances, and ensuring the professionalism and financial aspects of physician life.
