Reasons to have a Family Physician
For a while, the majority of families had a family physician or a family doctor. This was then followed by the Internet boom that made it possible to find physicians near your home at the touch of an icon. The mobile revolution has increased the speed at which this trend was accelerated. Nowadays, you can access consults or prescriptions, delivery of medicine, and information on the condition, all via the phone. Because of this, many have decided to abandon the notion that a person has a primary doctor and believe that the idea is old-fashioned. However, the reality ought to be different. Family physicians provide a myriad of benefits to both the patient as well as his/her family. To make this article, we’ll focus on the top five.
Lifecycle management
Lifecycle Management can be described as a favored concept in today’s software as well as other fields. The inspiration for it comes from the field of healthcare. Family doctors who treat individuals from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood are well-versed in the patient’s medical history. They are familiar with allergies, injuries, and challenges that have been faced in the past and how they might relate to current symptoms and diseases.
The level of familiarity and ease is also a great way for the patient to talk about sensitive aspects of their health with their family doctor. The family physician can take care of the patient as a member of the family and offer advice for or against specific medications or treatments to pursue. The family doctor may establish a schedule for health checks and support you to keep track of it with regular reminders. When a person is approaching middle age, the family doctor can even recommend screenings for certain ailments at the right moment.
Family history is a common thread
A variety of conditions, illnesses, or diseases can be traced to genetics; they are passed down from the blood relatives of a close relative. The risk of developing a certain condition is increased the more blood relatives have this disease. The information about the condition is typically given to the family doctor. Therefore, he or she can determine if one of the parents or an aunt or uncle has been diagnosed with a specific condition. Therefore, they can counsel the patient on how to minimize the chances to be affected by this disease. This is known as genetic counseling, and it is utilized today to identify people with cancer.
In many countries, in which Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) of patients are maintained and shared among doctors, information on genetically inheritable disorders and the relatives of those with the condition are also recorded. This allows doctors to easily treat the same condition or any other disease that is associated with it. For EMRs are still very rare, so family physicians keep an entry in the patient’s record regarding such information.
Family physicians are also aware of different challenges families could be facing, for instance, the loss of a job to one parent or a divorce that has recently occurred or separation, etc. This allows them to advise or check the children for anxiety, stress, and psychological issues.
A much greater scope of consultation
There is a false notion that family doctors who are general doctors by training are helpful in treating the common cold and fever. They are not able to treat cough, cold, and minor infections. This is not the case. Family physicians, also known as general doctors in certain countries complete a three-year program following graduation. It covers a broad range of medical courses, including the field of internal medicine children’s medicine, Obstetrics, and Gynecology, neurology as well as surgical procedures, psychiatry, and the medical community.
As a result, he/she can meet a variety of demands, such as vaccinations and minor surgical procedures as well as deal with serious ailments like diabetes and arthritis cardiovascular disease chronic pain, etc. This means that the family doctor is capable of providing ‘holistic care and not being consigned to primary care as many people imagine. Take this example:
- Immunization against influenza shots
- Allergy injections
- Testing of Treadmills
- Lab services
- Excision and biopsy of skin lesions
- Joint injections
- Abscess drainage and incision
- Vasectomy and circumcision
- Prenatal care, obstetrics delivery, as well as postpartum care
- Breast and pelvic exams for women
- Colposcopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy, and densitometry of bones
- Consultation on skin care, weight control hormone replacement depression, as well as heart conditions
- Pain management and palliative care
The ease of identifying an expert
If serious health issues are diagnosed, need specialists conduct additional tests to identify the problem and then, once the diagnosis is confirmed, the diagnosis, a specific treatment strategy. Finding the right specialist isn’t easy. Although the Internet can offer addresses, names as well as appointments, and visitation schedules reviews of specialists, that’s not enough. After the appointment has been scheduled depending on how busy the doctor is, the doctor might not conduct an extensive discovery session on the patient’s health and family background. Uncompleted information could result in mistakes in diagnosis and improper treatment, leading to negative results.
The family doctor is a great resource. Because doctors are part of a networked community and have access to a family physician, they can help you find the right specialist. Additionally, he/she is familiar with the patient as the family member would and is able to communicate relevant medical information about the patient to the specialist in the correct medical-technical terminology. This helps in reducing the time it takes to diagnose and the time needed to treat.
