What is so special about a family physician?

Around a core of common, acute and chronic, recurrent health problems, a family physician must marshall the traditional episodic management for both inpatient and outpatient illness. He must also be especially adept at recently emerging routines of prevention and early detection. He provides individual and familial psychologic support and counselling, for both its therapeutic and preventive values. In addition, he must relate the individual care of his patient and the patient's family to the community as a whole. In doing this he will use not only his own skills but those of lay health volunteers, trained allied health care professionals and skilled subspecialists in the limited medical disciplines. The proper preparation of family physicians for this complicated role has far-reaching implications for change in both medical education and medical practice.