[Does the general practitioner have a place in future medicine?].

The structure and content of the health care services are changing rapidly. General practice will be justified just as long as patients, doctors and society at large consider it important, useful, safe and economically sound. In order to survive it is important for the general practitioner, as a "Jack of all trades", to set honest limits for his or her own competence, and learn to use the new information technology to retrieve relevant knowledge quickly. The "patient" patient will become less frequent and more demanding consumers are emerging. The generalist is getting additional, new roles as the patient's teacher and adviser. The government and other payers will expect more documentation of outcome, cost-effectiveness and quality assurance from general practice. For the generalist, one of the major challenges will be a necessary transition from being an individualist to becoming more of a team player.