Family medicine (FM), formerly Family Practice (FP), is a medical specialty devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages; the specialist is named a family physician, family doctor, or formerly family practitioner. It is a division of primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. It is based on knowledge of the patient in the context of the family and the community, emphasizing disease prevention and health promotion. According to the World Organization of Family Doctors (Wonca), the aim of family medicine is to provide personal, comprehensive and continuing care for the individual in the context of the family and the community. The issues of values underlying this practice are usually known as primary care ethics. In Europe the discipline is often referred to as general practice, emphasising its holistic nature rather as well as its roots in the family. Others refer to it as the classic GP, knowledgeable yet compassionate.
Read more about Family Medicine: Scope of Practice, Family Medicine in India
Famous quotes containing the words family and/or medicine:
“At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another—generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“Authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the vice o’ the top.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)