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>> I wanted to be a family physician mainly to develop a continuity relationship with patients.
I love the idea of being able to do a lot
of different things for a lot of different patients.
The idea of becoming a specialist originally appealed to me, but I was concerned
that I wouldn't have a longitudinal relationship with people, and be able to deal with a lot
of the common things that people are afflicted with.
I mean I love to work, I love to take care of patients, I love to hear their stories,
and I love to help people improve upon their lives, be it the health-related aspects
of their lives that's going to help them be more productive in society, or live longer
or live better with the diseases that they have, that's what really appealed
to me about being a family physician.
You know, right now family medicine has a great opportunity to be
at the cornerstone of healthcare.
We know that there's a big need for primary care.
I think one of the things that's challenging is the lay public may not fully understand what a
family physician is, or what a family physician can do.
Relative to our training, we're trained in all the aspects of outpatient care,
we're trained in all the aspects of inpatient care,
obstetrical care, many surgical procedures.
We can offer a lot for our patients.
Where our specialty is going relative to that is to really be at the cornerstone of primary care.
We can't be the one-stop shopping for all patients, and we need to use referrals
and specialists a lot on a day to day basis, but also family medicine is really trained to branch
out into other areas of what we call sort of niche specialties.
A lot of people who are board certified
in family medicine may gravitate toward women's health, and may concentrate a focus
of their practice toward obstetrical care or women's healthcare.
Many of those people do solely that, many of those people still provide a wide spectrum
of broad-based care across family medicine.
We also have folks that specialize in sports medicine,
or men's health, or inpatient medicine solely.
And so I think, you know, with more opportunity and more education for the lay public,
they can understand better who we are and what we can provide on a national level.