Post by Chris on Apr 16, 2007 20:24:09 GMT -5
I just wanted to jot a few things down about Family Practice. FP gets dumped on by a large number of other specialties so I thought I would throw out a few facts. First of all, for my reasons for going into FP, please consult my post "The High Horse" in another post.
FP residents are, first and foremost, primary care physicians. This is important because there are few others out there. As the IM posts make clear, most students going into IM plan to specialize (90% last year). How many lay people know which specialist to consult if their ankles swell? ObGyn is now a surgical specialty, as explained in that post. So, in 10 years, most people with a medical problem will either go to the ER or see a FP first. In addition, there is a huge shortage of general practitioners. There's a map on the CDC website that shows GP shortages. I'll try to link it here, but it basically includes 99% of the US.
Here's a few common misconceptions that I'd like to address:
Family Doctors are incompetent.
To be fair, 60% of people calling themselves 'family doctors' never finished a residency or passed the FM boards. They got grandfathered in. So maybe they are incompetent, but you won't be after you finish your residency. To be unfair, FP's are in direct competition with most other specialties. In places where there's a doctor surplus, this leads to professional competition.
FP's just triage patients to specialists/nobody can know all of medicine.
FP's are able to help their patients 90-95% of the time without referral. This is because, while nobody can know all of medicine, >95% of disease is caused by <1% of known diseases. The bread and butter of medicine isn't pheochromocytoma and sternal TB, but idiopathic hypertension and chest pain.
Family doctors are just adult outpatient doctors.
There are family doctors who still do the whole model. Full-spectrum FP includes obstetrics, outpatient adult and peds, and inpatient adults. Not every FP does all these, but many do. West of the Mississippi in either urban or rural settings and in rural settings in the east, the 'FP model' (as opposed to the 'IM model') is much more prominent and full practice FP is more common. That being said, you can tailor your practice to do whatever you want.
Family doctors don't deliver babies.
This is untrue. In rural areas or anywhere west of the mississippi, FP's doing obstetrics with Ob backup is common. For a while, hospitals in Florida were begging for FP's to come work just to deliver babies; the Ob's wouldn't do it in that legal climate. If you want to do obstetrics, you can do it till you get tired of it.
I'll be better trained if I do med/peds and I'll get to see the same variety of patients.
People who do med/peds usually end up doing one or the other after residency. In addition, med/peds lacks the academic and professional support that FM has. Finally, you spend a year longer and receive no Ob/Gyn training, less derm training, less procedure training.
Here's some high points of FP.
You get to know your patients (good if you like people).
You can do anything you have an interest in (Ob, peds, adult, procedures, even inpatient surgery at some of the wilder cowgirl/boy programs).
You can go anywhere you want (even the best residency programs are not seriously competitive to American medical graduates). Wanna change of scenery? You can always find a new job or change your practice location.
You can save the world.
FP's make great docs for international medicine. You have the skills necessary to help anybody anywhere.
Email me at ccoppeansmd@students.mcg.edu if you have questions.
FP residents are, first and foremost, primary care physicians. This is important because there are few others out there. As the IM posts make clear, most students going into IM plan to specialize (90% last year). How many lay people know which specialist to consult if their ankles swell? ObGyn is now a surgical specialty, as explained in that post. So, in 10 years, most people with a medical problem will either go to the ER or see a FP first. In addition, there is a huge shortage of general practitioners. There's a map on the CDC website that shows GP shortages. I'll try to link it here, but it basically includes 99% of the US.
Here's a few common misconceptions that I'd like to address:
Family Doctors are incompetent.
To be fair, 60% of people calling themselves 'family doctors' never finished a residency or passed the FM boards. They got grandfathered in. So maybe they are incompetent, but you won't be after you finish your residency. To be unfair, FP's are in direct competition with most other specialties. In places where there's a doctor surplus, this leads to professional competition.
FP's just triage patients to specialists/nobody can know all of medicine.
FP's are able to help their patients 90-95% of the time without referral. This is because, while nobody can know all of medicine, >95% of disease is caused by <1% of known diseases. The bread and butter of medicine isn't pheochromocytoma and sternal TB, but idiopathic hypertension and chest pain.
Family doctors are just adult outpatient doctors.
There are family doctors who still do the whole model. Full-spectrum FP includes obstetrics, outpatient adult and peds, and inpatient adults. Not every FP does all these, but many do. West of the Mississippi in either urban or rural settings and in rural settings in the east, the 'FP model' (as opposed to the 'IM model') is much more prominent and full practice FP is more common. That being said, you can tailor your practice to do whatever you want.
Family doctors don't deliver babies.
This is untrue. In rural areas or anywhere west of the mississippi, FP's doing obstetrics with Ob backup is common. For a while, hospitals in Florida were begging for FP's to come work just to deliver babies; the Ob's wouldn't do it in that legal climate. If you want to do obstetrics, you can do it till you get tired of it.
I'll be better trained if I do med/peds and I'll get to see the same variety of patients.
People who do med/peds usually end up doing one or the other after residency. In addition, med/peds lacks the academic and professional support that FM has. Finally, you spend a year longer and receive no Ob/Gyn training, less derm training, less procedure training.
Here's some high points of FP.
You get to know your patients (good if you like people).
You can do anything you have an interest in (Ob, peds, adult, procedures, even inpatient surgery at some of the wilder cowgirl/boy programs).
You can go anywhere you want (even the best residency programs are not seriously competitive to American medical graduates). Wanna change of scenery? You can always find a new job or change your practice location.
You can save the world.
FP's make great docs for international medicine. You have the skills necessary to help anybody anywhere.
Email me at ccoppeansmd@students.mcg.edu if you have questions.
