What is Family Medicine?

Family Medicine is a specialty of the outpatient clinic that deals with the comprehensive care of the patient and his family. Because it is an integrating discipline, its field of action is not limited to a particular organ or system, but to the globality and context of the different health / illness situations that may occur throughout a person’s life. It is a very broad and complex specialty with tools and knowledge that are proper and to be able to exercise it requires a specific postgraduate training (residence, concurrence) and a continuous update. Their training includes, mainly, the training in the health problems of ambulatory management more frequent, independently of the organ or system that is affected, as well as the follow-up and the attention of problems that may require hospitalisation.

Beyond the context where Family Medicine is practiced, a family doctor is trained to carry out different interventions such as: family interviews, the assistance of children, adults and the elderly, performing gynaecological practices, monitoring pregnancies, surgeries minors, deliveries, psychosocial interviews and any other practice that is related to the resolution of frequent problems in their field of professional practice.

Due to the multiple situations faced by a family doctor, the specialty is, perhaps, one of the most flexible and eclectic and its development is shaped by the needs and characteristics of the family. In this context, the culture, the health system, the institutions and the particularities of the patient and their environment are implicit.

Remember that the help of an expert is an excellent option to avoid health problems. Here at Parkwood Green Medical we will assist you and help you adopt proper health habits that will ensure you feel fine.

As a summary we will describe some of the fundamental characteristics that constitute and identify Family Medicine:

• The longitudinal patient-doctor relationship model that is established with people and their families leads to a modality of care in which the contact between the patient and their doctor is not only limited to the illness situation (ie, to see the doctor is not necessary to be sick) which allows access to prevention strategies and healthy living.
• The mutual knowledge that is built over time between the patient and their doctor generates a bond of trust and respect that is one of the most powerful diagnostic and therapeutic tools used by Family Medicine. The possibility of following a patient for many years makes known their preferences, values, beliefs and individual characteristics as well as the family dynamics and their social context, with information that facilitates their care in the face of different health problems.
• The ability to assist people and families in different ages of life (childhood, adolescence, youth, adulthood, old age) makes it possible to integrate family dynamics and context and thus work in different life crises, which will normally occur throughout life.
• Because it is a specialty that traverses medicine transversally, the family doctor is prepared to work as a team and coordinate the health care of their patients, taking into account the competencies and responsibilities of other health professionals. health (medical specialists, nurses, kinesiologists, nutritionists).
• The family doctor is trained to provide a broad, comprehensive and integrating listening of the physical and emotional planes.
• Respect for the autonomy of the patient and the principle of “first not to harm”, in short, not to make the healthy sick and not complicate life to the sick, are central principles of Family Medicine

Why choose Family Medicine?

In recent years, Family Medicine has been a specialty that is little valued in our country. Reviewing the list of elections for the MIR places we observed that few are the cases that choose it with numbers below 1000. Some are clear from the beginning that this specialty is their vocation, others opt for Family Medicine because they cannot access to other specialties and others get into it without having it clear.

No matter which of these groups you identify with, it is difficult to make decisions and choose the path you want to take for the rest of your life. Do not be scared, we’ve all been through that. This small text is addressed to future residents who doubt whether to choose the specialty of Family Medicine.

During the residency of Family Medicine, the nucleus is located in the emergency room of the hospital and in the health centre, which will be the most frequent places. In addition, as a good generalist specialty, you must rotate through all hospital services to learn the maximum in each of them and apply it in our clinical practice. Either by consultation or in the hospital facility, the most important thing is your attitude and daily study. They will give you the responsibilities you want to assume, provided you show a receptive attitude and willing to work. During the guards is the time where you must put into practice everything learned in the day to day. They are hard. They are the place where you are going to be wrong and at the same time where you will learn the most. In our residence, most of the guards are performed at the Emergency door, but you must also master the door of Paediatrics, Traumatology and Gynaecology.

As you get older, the residence progressively disconnects from the hospital to get closer and closer to what will probably be your usual workplace: the health centre. In case you are not convinced by the health centre, you should know that there are other ways you can work when you finish your residency.

Focusing on health centres, here is another more familiar atmosphere. You find that doctor-patient relationship that is often scarce in the hospital. The most beautiful thing of this moment is that you see your patients from a global point of view. By this I mean, we cannot focus on a single device or a single symptom, but we must manage the set of pathologies and comorbidities and, in addition, the psychic aspect.

Family doctors

The family doctor is one who knows the patient as a whole, knows when to distinguish when the grandfather is weird, has to know how to listen and know his patients well in order to differentiate the banal from the potentially serious. We must always look beyond and suspect, a mother with chronic diarrhea that hides a depression, a man with recurrent pneumonias that mask a tumour process, a polymedicated grandfather with heart failure and renal failure by diuretics.

In summary, the Family doctor is the first contact of the health system when a patient comes for a problem. They respect you and place their trust in you. We, in turn, must know how to manage our patients globally, not as patients, but as people: we must always go further, since their health depends on our good medical judgment.

Remember that here at Parkwood Green Medical you can receive any type of medical assistance from top qualified experts in the area.