Post by Chris on Apr 16, 2007 19:43:47 GMT -5
I consider it a moral imperative to push primary care and family medicine is where primary care lives and breathes and is glorified. Why should you do primary care? Here's why I'm doing it:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnett, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Starting my personal statement with the above quote by Robert Heinlein no doubt offers a certain amount of insight into my choice of family medicine as a medical specialty. I desire a life full of a broad range of experiences and I feel a strong call to develop a wide variety of skills. Indeed, family medicine is ideal for one such as I who values diversity in experience and deed. However, there are other, more compelling, reasons for me to choose family medicine. Family doctors provide the small interventions that make the big differences, are best able to effect the whole of the biopsychosocial model, and practice preventive medicine.
My studies of human history have left me convinced that it is the small intervention, implemented on a large scale, that makes the biggest difference to the health of society. All of the CABG's performed in the history of mankind do less to prolong life and improve quality of life than any one of the following do in one day: public sanitation, antibiotics, good obstetric care. It is not the grand, heroic measures that I want to perform in medicine, but day-to-day, bread-and-butter interventions that truly make a difference. It is not just the well-off or easy patient that I wish to treat, but everybody.
Being able to address the whole of the biopsychosocial model is a difficult ideal to attain. However, through a broad base of training and a focus on factors beyond the biological, as one finds in Family Medicine, I think I could be adequately prepared to address the full model, an action which I know is the right thing to do.
My final consideration in choosing family medicine is based upon my experiences as a computer professional. Early on I learned that catching a problem early was far superior to catching one late; fixing an error in the design was 1/10th the cost of fixing that same error after implementation. This experience with computers has made me a true believer in preventive medicine.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnett, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Starting my personal statement with the above quote by Robert Heinlein no doubt offers a certain amount of insight into my choice of family medicine as a medical specialty. I desire a life full of a broad range of experiences and I feel a strong call to develop a wide variety of skills. Indeed, family medicine is ideal for one such as I who values diversity in experience and deed. However, there are other, more compelling, reasons for me to choose family medicine. Family doctors provide the small interventions that make the big differences, are best able to effect the whole of the biopsychosocial model, and practice preventive medicine.
My studies of human history have left me convinced that it is the small intervention, implemented on a large scale, that makes the biggest difference to the health of society. All of the CABG's performed in the history of mankind do less to prolong life and improve quality of life than any one of the following do in one day: public sanitation, antibiotics, good obstetric care. It is not the grand, heroic measures that I want to perform in medicine, but day-to-day, bread-and-butter interventions that truly make a difference. It is not just the well-off or easy patient that I wish to treat, but everybody.
Being able to address the whole of the biopsychosocial model is a difficult ideal to attain. However, through a broad base of training and a focus on factors beyond the biological, as one finds in Family Medicine, I think I could be adequately prepared to address the full model, an action which I know is the right thing to do.
My final consideration in choosing family medicine is based upon my experiences as a computer professional. Early on I learned that catching a problem early was far superior to catching one late; fixing an error in the design was 1/10th the cost of fixing that same error after implementation. This experience with computers has made me a true believer in preventive medicine.
