Two major themes run through many of the articles in this month's Journal - the need to sustain a skilled primary care workforce and the financial problems facing western countries in sustaining the quality and provision of health and social care, with evident interactions between the two.There are recruitment and retention problems in general practice in the UK, other European countries, and in north America, where readily-identifiable factors, such as remuneration, combine with more subtle pressures, such as professional prestige, to deter graduates from entering a career in primary medical care. The trouble starts well before medical school. The political and societal images of medicine are largely hospital-centric, reinforced by media stereotypes. Governments have
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