[The general practitioner and community medical services].

The writer defines the role of the general practitioner in the setting of the health system of Panama and in relation to the individual, the family and the community, in the framework of the policy of extending the coverage of health services to the entire population. He stresses that modern medicine has to focus on the whole person, and he concludes therefrom that the physician must be prepared to provide comprehensive care. He emphasizes that, to overcome the limitations that now weigh upon medical education, in the internship stage the training of the general practitioner must begin at the level of a specialty and be completed later with two or three years of theoretical and practical instruction. This requires strengthened instruction in comprehensive outpatient care, extensive contact with rural and urban communities, and that teaching programs be set in the framework of the health services and facilities. He also feels that the general physician already practicing should be offered the opportunity of qualifying under an in-service education program as a specialist in comprehensive, general or family medicine, with a certification system that includes the approval of academic studies and the performance of research work.