ISSN: 2044-9038 (Print) 2044-9046 (Electronic)

Clinical Practice

Family Doctors:

 Family medicine is defined as that specialty of medicine which is concerned with providing comprehensive care to individuals and families and integrating biomedical, behavioural and social sciences. As an academic discipline, it includes comprehensive health care services, education and research. A family doctor is a physician who is a specialist trained to provide health care services for all individuals, regardless of age, sex or type of health problem. A family doctor provides primary and continuing care for entire families within their communities; addresses physical, psychological and social problems; and coordinates comprehensive health care services with other specialists as needed. Family doctors may also be known as family physicians or general practitioners, depending on the location of practice. Family practice is a relatively new area of specialization. The concept of this discipline evolved in 1960s in the UK and USA. In USA, family medicine evolved from general practice as a felt need in personal health care. In UK, the same trend has been noticed in the introduction of a general practice as a specialty of the Royal College of general practitioners with systematic training programmes on par with the MRCP and FRCS fellowships. The family physician constitutes the fundamental core of the health system in the Netherlands and Spain. The general practitioner is the key provider in National Health System in the UK. Recently EEC has defined the duration of post-graduation training in general practice.   

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