Raquel Correia recently shared something that caught my attention: "- Ah. You’re a GP. So… not a real doctor?"

She described how that line often lands with a half-smile, as if general practice is what you choose when you "didn’t quite make it." Then she flips the frame: general practice is not a failure to specialize, it is a refusal to be trapped.

That framing matters, because the way we talk about general practice shapes everything from medical student choices to workforce planning to how clinicians treat each other in the hallway. I want to expand on Raquel’s point, not as a rebuttal to specialists (specialization is essential), but as a clearer explanation of what modern generalism actually enables.

"GP isn’t a fallback. It’s medicine with escape hatches."

The stereotype: "not a real doctor"

The insult is not usually explicit. More often it is the raised eyebrow, the subtle hierarchy in introductions, or the assumption that the GP is the person you see while you wait to see the "real" expert.

But the premise behind that stereotype is flawed: it equates value with narrowness. In many careers, depth is measured by how tight your lane is. In medicine, that logic breaks down because the human body does not present problems neatly sorted into organ systems, billing codes, or single diagnoses.

General practice is where uncertainty lives. And the ability to operate safely in uncertainty is not a lack of rigor, it is a different kind of rigor.

Generalism is range, not chaos

Raquel Correia lists a set of scenes that sound almost cinematic: moving across countries and systems, spending months in France and then somewhere else, doing yacht medicine, caring for performers, supporting extreme environments like mountains or sea-side clinics.

Read one way, it sounds like a chaotic career. Read another way, it is a clinician with a portable core skill set: first contact medicine, pattern recognition, risk management, communication, triage, continuity, and the ability to coordinate care across fragmented systems.

A GP does not "know a little about everything" in the casual sense. A good GP builds a map. They learn:

Which symptoms are red flags vs noise
When to watch and wait vs when to escalate now
How comorbidities and medications interact in real life
How social context changes clinical reality (work, family, finances, immigration status)
How to translate specialist recommendations into something a patient can actually implement

That is range with structure.

"This isn’t chaos. It’s range."

The hidden specialty: reading the whole map

Raquel also writes, "GPs don’t lack depth. They read the whole map." That line captures what many people miss: general practice is a specialty of integration.

Specialists often go deep on a domain. GPs go deep on interfaces:

The interface between symptoms and diagnoses
The interface between guideline and individual patient
The interface between multiple specialists who do not share a single plan
The interface between medicine and life

In practice, that means the GP is frequently the person who notices the medication list is quietly becoming dangerous, that the insomnia is actually grief, that the chest pain is actually panic but still needs a cardiac rule-out, or that the patient is agreeing politely while not understanding anything.

Depth is not only knowledge density. It is also systems thinking, longitudinal judgment, and the ability to manage competing priorities.

The career advantage nobody advertises: the ability to evolve

One of Raquel Correia’s strongest points is that general practice is "the only specialty that assumes you’ll evolve." That is a career design statement, not just a clinical one.

Many clinicians reach a moment where life changes and the job does not: children arrive, parents age, health shifts, or burnout hits. When a career path is built around a single rigid template (fixed location, fixed hours, fixed call schedule, fixed identity), change becomes catastrophic.

General practice often offers more levers:

More control over schedule, including part-time clinical work
More settings (community clinic, telehealth, rural, urgent care)
More adjacent roles (teaching, leadership, digital health, quality)
More room to step in and out of clinical intensity across seasons of life

Raquel mentions not doing mandatory night shifts if you do not want them, and work that can bend around responsibilities. That flexibility is not a perk. It is a sustainability mechanism.

Flexibility is not lower standards

Some people hear "flexible" and assume "easier." In reality, flexibility in general practice often requires stronger boundaries and sharper prioritization.

It is harder to deliver safe care when you are tired, rushed, and unsupported. If a GP designs a schedule that supports longevity, the patient benefits from continuity, better listening, and fewer preventable mistakes.

The GP as builder: clinical practice plus impact work

Raquel also points out a pattern that is increasingly common: some GPs see patients three days a week and spend the rest of the time building products, advising teams, teaching, or fixing broken systems.

That combination is powerful because general practice offers an unusually broad view of what is failing:

Access bottlenecks
Poor care coordination
Fragmented data and repeated histories
Preventive care gaps
Health literacy barriers
Misaligned incentives that reward procedures over outcomes

A GP who moves between clinic and system-level work can turn recurring pain points into improvements: better pathways, clearer triage protocols, more usable patient education, safer prescribing workflows, more realistic digital tools.

This is also where Raquel’s background in AI, value-based healthcare, and education aligns with generalism. The generalist lens is often the missing ingredient in product design: it keeps the tool grounded in reality, context, and workflow.

What this means for medical students and early-career doctors

If you are choosing a path, the question is not "Which specialty is more real?" It is:

What kind of problems energize me?
Do I want continuity with patients over time?
Do I want a portable career across geographies and systems?
Do I want a role that can flex with life stages?
Do I want to keep multiple doors open: clinical, leadership, education, innovation?

General practice is not the right fit for everyone. But it is a high-agency career option for people who value breadth, adaptability, and long-term sustainability.

A practical reframe you can use

The next time you hear, "So you’re a GP," try answering with the underlying truth:

"Yes. I specialize in first contact care, uncertainty, and coordinating the whole picture."

That is not defensive. It is accurate.

Respecting both depth and breadth

None of this diminishes specialist expertise. Medicine needs deep domain mastery and it needs integrators. The problem is not specialization. The problem is the status game that treats integration as lesser.

Raquel Correia’s post resonates because it names what many clinicians feel but rarely say plainly: general practice can be an intentionally designed career, built for movement, learning, and life.

And in a healthcare system under strain, the clinicians who can read the whole map are not optional. They are foundational.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Raquel Correia, Chief Medical Officer | Practicing M.D. | Using AI, VBHC, and Education to improve Patient Outcomes. View the original LinkedIn post →