Shanghai plans to train and introduce 500 new doctors into its community healthcare centers this year, the Shanghai-based Wenhui Daily reported Sunday.

The increase in general practitioners would ease pressure on overcrowded hospitals, the municipal government asserted. General practitioners, or family doctors, treat people of all ages and both sexes for normal and acute ailments.

Patients might be more interested in visiting these doctors if diagnoses at community level were a prerequisite for receiving treatment at a larger hospital, a head of psychology at Zhongshan Hospital told the Global Times Sunday.

"Since most residents would choose prestigious hospitals over their community health care centers, medical graduates believe there's no future at a community healthcare center," said Ji Jianlin. "More efforts are needed to make the training work."

In the US, general practitioners account for 30 percent of all doctors while it's 2.3 percent in Shanghai, Zhu Shanzhu, director of the Shanghai General Medical Teacher Training Center at Zhongshan Hospital, told Wenhui Daily Sunday.

Since Shanghai established its first general practitioner training center in 2000, the city has trained more than 7,000 general practitioners.

Few medical students want to be a general practitioner.

"I'm in charge of about 2,000 residents now. I feel tired because I have to educate them about disease prevention and healthcare on top of diagnosis," Tan Chunhua, a general practitioner working in Changning district, told the Global Times.

She earned 40,000 yuan (US$6,160) a year where university graduates' average salary is about 37,620 yuan. "Many general practitioners have quit their jobs," she said.

China wants general practitioners at community healthcare centers to provide residents with convenient medical services including community healthcare, education on disease prevention, recovery and family planning.

China will train 60,000 medical graduates and doctors to be general practitioners by 2012, according to a plan released by the National Development and Reform Commission in 2010. The country aims to have 300,000 doctors at community level as of 2020.