Consultant (medicine) in the context of "General practitioner"

HCSA - the hospital doctors' union (Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association) is a nationally recognised professional association and trade union in the UK dedicated solely to hospital consultants, specialty doctors and core/specialty hospital doctors in training and Foundation grades ("junior doctors"), originally established in 1948 as the Regional Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association.

Medical Students can also join as associates.

A teaching hospital or university hospital is a hospital or medical center that provides medical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are almost always affiliated with one or more universities and are often co-located with medical schools.

Teaching hospitals use a residency program to educate qualified physicians, podiatrists, dentists, and pharmacists who are receiving training after attaining the degree of MD, DO, DPM, DDS, DMD, PharmD, BDS, BDent, MBBS, MBChB, or BMed. Those that attend a teaching hospital or clinic practice medicine under the direct or indirect supervision of a senior medical clinician registered in that specialty, such as an attending physician or consultant. The purpose of these residency programs is to create an environment where new doctors can learn to practice medicine in a safe setting which is supervised by physicians that provide both oversight and education.

Residency or postgraduate training is a stage of graduate medical education. It refers to a qualified physician (one who holds the degree of MD, DO, MBBS/MBChB), veterinarian (DVM/VMD, BVSc/BVMS), dentist (DDS or DMD), podiatrist (DPM), optometrist (OD),pharmacist (PharmD), or Medical Laboratory Scientist (Doctor of Medical Laboratory Science) who practices medicine or surgery, veterinary medicine, dentistry, optometry, podiatry, clinical pharmacy, or Clinical Laboratory Science, respectively, usually in a hospital or clinic, under the direct or indirect supervision of a senior medical clinician registered in that specialty such as an attending physician or consultant.

The term residency is named as such due to resident physicians (resident doctors) of the 19th century residing at the dormitories of the hospital in which they received training.

A fellowship is the period of medical training in the United States and Canada that a physician, dentist, or veterinarian may undertake after completing a specialty training program (residency). During this time (usually more than one year), the trainee is known as a fellow or fellow physician. Fellows are capable of acting as an attending physician or a consultant physician in the specialist field in which they were trained, such as internal medicine or pediatrics. After completing a fellowship in the relevant sub-specialty, the physician is permitted to practice without direct supervision by other physicians in that sub-specialty, such as cardiology or oncology.

In the United Kingdom, a resident doctor, known until 2024 as a junior doctor, is a qualified medical practitioner who is either engaged in postgraduate training or employed in a non-training post. The period of being a resident doctor starts when they qualify as a medical practitioner following graduation with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree and start the UK Foundation Programme. It culminates in a post as a consultant, a general practitioner (GP), or becoming a SAS doctor (Specialty, Associate Specialist, or Specialist doctor).

The term resident doctor currently incorporates the grades of foundation doctor, core trainee (in some specialties, such as surgery, medicine, and psychiatry), and specialty registrar. Before 2007, it included the grades of pre-registration house officer, senior house officer and specialist registrar. During this time, resident doctors will do postgraduate examinations to become members of a medical royal college relevant to the specialty in which they are training, for example membership of the Royal College of Physicians for doctors specialising in internal medicine, membership of the Royal College of Surgeons for doctors specialising in surgery or membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners for doctors specialising in family medicine. Doctors typically may be resident doctors for 8–20 years, and this may be extended by doing research towards a higher degree, for example a Doctor of Philosophy or Doctor of Medicine degree. In England, there are around 71,000 resident doctors.