Training the trainers: socialisation and change in general practice

An ethnographic study of a one year part‐time course for potential GP trainers is reported using Bernstein's concepts of classification and framing as a means of analysis. The significance of the course and the changes it attempts to bring about are assessed by means of two comparisons. First, the course is related to the classic studies of under‐graduate socialisation within medical school where it is seen to undermine this socialisation through the development of special skills. Second, the development of such special skills is seen as part of an historical trend leading to the further separation or emancipation of general practice from hospital medicine.