Goals of Family Medicine

Family practice doctors pride themselves in prevention. In an ideal world they would want all of their patients to come in for annual well check up exams / physicals. At these physicals they would examine the patient and run a variety of tests depending on the patients age and risk factors. Then they would treat the patients accordingly. The idea is prevention. If a person with a family history of HTN (hypertension) comes in and starts to have a slightly elevated blood pressure, the family doctor will begin aggressive treatment to prevent complications down the road. 

Despite these lofty goals, many patients are too busy or lack the insurance to come in every year for these type of exams. So what actually happens is that when a patient gets sick and shows up at the doctor's office, the doctor will treat the acute illness but at the same time try to do a more thorough exam to determine the patient's baseline with other risk factors. 

This past week we I have been studying and learning about preventative healthcare. This is easier in children. It starts at birth when they are given their first vaccinations and then at 2 months more vaccinations and there are regular follow ups and more vaccinations at each visit until the child is almost 2 years old. Most of this is preventative medicine. Then on the opposite side the elderly are often sick and thus are consistently in the office or hospital. Much of the preventative medicine in this age group is too little to late but there are still many things that can still be done.