The phrase has become a buzzword of sorts, but more and more GPs are choosing to pursue multiple careers at the same time. Here’s what it means for the workforce.
There’s a problem with our workforce data.
We’re measuring the incoming number of general practitioners largely by headcount – forgetting the fact that, increasingly, GPs are not working full time in general practice.
Portfolio careers – where a GP might do two days in a brick-and-mortar practice, two days at a telehealth clinic, and one day at an urgent care centre – are quick becoming the norm for younger GPs.
Fewer full-time GPs is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, Melbourne-based demographer Simon Kuestenmacher tells delegates at The Medical Republic and Health Services Daily Burning GP 2.0 conference on Saturday.
But it does throw off the data.
“From a healthcare planning perspective, this means one GP [in training] is no longer necessarily translating into one full-time GP,” he says.
“So, we need to import and we need to create even more GPs.
“If the population grows by hundreds of thousands of people, the government can’t ask how many more GPs do we need – it must ask how many more GP hours do we need, and how do we actually staff those?
“It might sound like a technical differentiation, but it’s a big difference. Because if headcount rises by, let’s say, 10% but average hours worked fall by 10%, you actually haven’t moved at all. You essentially stood still.”
What’s more, AMA Queensland director Dr Maria Boulton tells delegates during a keynote on the future of the profession, the very nature of general practice is in a state of flux.
“Much more care will happen remotely, or as AI says, asynchronously,” Dr Boulton says.
“Patients won’t necessarily book an appointment every time they need something. Simple transactions will be handled digitally.
“Nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals, and GPs will work in much more integrated teams.
“Paradoxically, that could mean longer GP consultations are available for the people who actually need them, because we’ve actually stopped wasting time on things that machines can safely do, and we will move from more episodic care to continuous care.”
With that in mind, here’s a selection of perspectives from Burning GP 2.0 speakers who have portfolio careers of their own.
Dr Michael Bonning, AMA president-elect
“I’m someone who has only half-hour appointments or longer in my practice,” Dr Bonning says.
“It is not the way to make money in medicine, but it’s absolutely the way to make a difference and have an impact, to give time for people, to deal with the complex comorbidities and interrelationships between those and their psychosocial health.
“… If your focus is entirely on qualifications, [care] is never going to be distributed in a way that helps everyone.
“The generalist inside me has moved from boat medicine [during my time in the Navy] to … looking after kids, to having a genuine interest in musculoskeletal medicine, but then also doing a lot with people’s mental health.
“All of those things could be and can be things that I turn on and turn off depending on context.
“That’s probably what we can say about the future of our system – we turn on and off those skills because we all start as generalists. So how do you fund that?
“Well, you don’t fund it by making more and more and more little pockets inside the MBS.
“You fund it by moving the money to the people who need it and then giving people like us the ability to access that money to deliver better care.
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Dr Jasmine Davis, General Practice Registrar and Doctors in Training representative to the Federal AMA Ltd Board:
“I was lucky in that I had quite a few good mentors, some of whom are in the room, that have taught me that you need to play the long game in this career, and if you push too hard too early, you’re going to burn yourself out,” she says.
“I see from a lot of nods in the room that this has happened to a lot of people. And I was just lucky that I had some excellent GP mentors that said to me, ‘If you don’t think you can do full-time general practice, don’t start there. Don’t go straight in and do six months full-time if you know that it’s going to possibly burn you out.’
“So, I’m doing two days a week [in general practice]. I’m doing two days a week of medical education with WA Country Health, and then next year I’m doing the academic post with the RACGP, with Dr Ramya Raman as my supervisor.
“I think that playing the long game in general practice is excellent advice that I was given and that I think we can give a lot of other people.”
She also encourages GPs to engage with their younger colleagues.
“I don’t know how many other registrars there are in this room, but I’m often one of very few in these sorts of spaces,” Dr Davis says.
“And similarly, at the AMA, I’m on the board, but I’m the only junior doctor there, and I often come to places like this where junior doctors, doctors in training, aren’t asked their view on what they want the future to look like.
“In 2033, some of you may be retired. But you need to be asking the future generation what they want it to look like.
“What do you want your training to be? What do you want to count? You need to be asking registrars what they want it to look like, rather than assume or think back at your career and reflect in that way, because it’s going to be completely different.”
Dr Ramya Raman, RACGP president-elect
“The future of our college is led by GPs in training, but also by our supervisors and our medical educators,” Dr Raman says.
“There is a tremendous amount of work that happens in the machinery of the college in trying to deliver the right curriculum and the delivery mode, depending on the setting of the GP training, where they’re located – it doesn’t matter what level of training they’re at.
“But to come back to … what [training] looks like into the future and how we keep it real – well, we’ve got to keep it nimble.
“We need to be able to do that. And as medical educators, their feedback into the college is what’s actually going to drive it, alongside a consultative process with the GPs in training.”
Burning GP 2.0 was held at Peppers Noosa Resorts and Villas on 26 September 2026.
