What is Family Medicine and Significance of Multi Specialties?

We have observed rapidly growing new specialties and subspecialties during the last 20 to 25 years. During our time i.e. 1980s to do specialty in a single subject like general medicine, Urology, Paed. surgery is a great achievement. Only in recent years, we can understand or appreciate the concept of the term Family Doctor.

To make ourselves understand the concept of Family Physician, I would like to quote a routinely used term in our language i.e. "Go to a Doctor and do a body checkup" ; Without having any knowledge of which specialty Doctor or which field of expertise Doctor etc., people will use the word Doctor. Likewise our general public, leaders, even some of our medical fraternity uses the word Doctor / Body Check ups in a generalized way.

Many people use the word Family Doctor, Family Physician with the idea that a single doctor will be able to treat all the members in a family (Children and Adults) Pediatrics to Geriatrics having complaints. In some contexts, the term family doctor/physician is also used for RMP/PMP or other few MBBS doctors who are willing to treat all members if a single family.

In reality, the word Family Medicine, General Practice need to be used for Doctors (Post Graduation) MD, General Practice, Family Medicine DNB; These doctors are further trained (3 years duration) in all specialties, so that these doctors are qualified to treat all members in a family. These doctors are given PG in Family Medicine. Our country having more rural population and with lack of complete education; we need more Family Medicine (Multi specialties) doctors to meet the medical need in our country.

To understand the branch Family Medicine/General Practice in a much better way, I would like to share the following two examples (2 cases):

Case 1: 45 years lady (educated and employed) came to me for C/O chest pain and some general vague complaints. After examining completely and some general investigation including ECG, I gave advise to see a MD general physician to rule out/confirm the heart complaint. I came to conclusion that she will know the gravity of her illness. After some days (weeks) she came to me and showed me the consultation done by MD in Gynae & OBS. Finally, she was simply seen by a lady doctor, specialized in O.B.G (Obstetrics and Genecology) and not by a M.D i.e., Doctor of Medicine who are specialized to deal with Medical Management at graduation/master level.

Case 2: 50 year old man, suddenly collapsed by seeing his son (age 24 years) and became unconscious for few minutes who is undergoing dental procedure in a dental clinic. The Dental Surgeon's cousin, who is nearby, being a Master degree General Physician i.e. MD & DTCD did a battery of blood and urine test including C T Brain. Fortunately or unfortunately CT revealed some local lesions (vague) and the patient was referred to Neurophysician for further management. Then the Neurophysician did few specialized investigation and confirmed no abnormality found in the brain. The patient is normal and nothing to worry about the accidental fall.

Like this we can see number of patients investigated and treated by non concerned specialists. This can be minimized if we have trained Family Medicine/General Practice doctors who are able to see all family members to a Diploma level or secondary level of treatment. These trained doctors will stand between First hand (patient)) to Super specialist; so that time (on one side) and finances (ours still being a developing country) can be saved. I personally with all my 35 years of medical field experience strongly recommend Family Medicine/General Practice to I.M.C or I.M.A to make a specialty branch on Family Medicine which can serve our Indian population.

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