A general practitioner (GP) or family physician is a doctor who is a consultant in general practice.
A Physician Assistant or Physician Associate (PA) is a type of healthcare professional. While these job titles are used internationally, there is significant variation in training and scope of practice from country to country, and sometimes between smaller jurisdictions such as states or provinces. Depending on location, PAs practice semi-autonomously under the supervision of a physician, or autonomously perform a subset of medical services classically provided by physicians.
Primary care is a model of care that supports first-contact, accessible, continuous, comprehensive and coordinated person-focused care. It aims to optimise population health and reduce disparities across the population by ensuring that subgroups have equal access to services.
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) was founded in 1947 to promote and maintain high-quality standards for family medicine, an offshoot of the classical general practitioner. It is headquartered in Leawood, Kansas.
Family medicine is a medical specialty within primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. The specialist, who is usually a primary care physician, is named a family physician. It is often referred to as general practice and a practitioner as a general practitioner. Historically, their role was once performed by any doctor with qualifications from a medical school and who works in the community. However, since the 1950s, family medicine / general practice has become a specialty in its own right, with specific training requirements tailored to each country. The names of the specialty emphasize its holistic nature and/or its roots in the family. It is based on knowledge of the patient in the context of the family and the community, focusing on disease prevention and health promotion. According to the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), the aim of family medicine is "promoting 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.
A medical specialty is a branch of medical practice that is focused on a defined group of patients, diseases, skills, or philosophy. Examples include those branches of medicine that deal exclusively with children (paediatrics), cancer (oncology), laboratory medicine (pathology), or primary care. After completing medical school or other basic training, physicians or surgeons and other clinicians usually further their medical education in a specific specialty of medicine by completing a multiple-year residency to become a specialist.
The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) is a classification method for primary care encounters. The ICPC-3 strives to be a person centered classification for Primary Care, building on the foundations of the ICPC-2. It includes references to existing international standards such as ICD-10, ICD-11, ICF as well as SNOMED CT clinical terminology. It provides a framework for documenting and organizing clinical data from primary care patient contacts.
The World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) is a global not-for-profit professional organization representing family physicians and general practitioners from all regions of the world. WONCA's mission is to improve the quality of life of the people of the world through high standards of care in general practice/family medicine.
Jan De Maeseneer is a Belgian family physician and has been Head of the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care of Ghent University (1991–2017).
The Postgraduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) of the University of Colombo is the graduate school that provides specialist training and board certification of medical doctors in Sri Lanka. The only type of its kind, it is similar to the prestigious Royal Medical Colleges of the United Kingdom.
India has a multi-payer universal health care model that is paid for by a combination of public and government regulated private health insurances along with the element of almost entirely tax-funded public hospitals. The public hospital system is essentially free for all Indian residents except for small, often symbolic co-payments in some services. Economic Survey 2022-23 highlighted that the Central and State Governments’ budgeted expenditure on the health sector reached 2.1% of GDP in FY23 and 2.2% in FY22, against 1.6% in FY21. India ranks 78th and has one of the lowest healthcare spending as a percent of GDP. It also ranks 77th on the list of countries by total health expenditure per capita.
Michael Richard Kidd is an Australian medical practitioner, academic and author. He is Professor of Global Primary Care and Future Health Systems at the University of Oxford and Director of the Centre for Future Health Systems at the University of New South Wales. He is a past president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) a past president of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) and former Deputy Chief Medical Officer with the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.
Sree Bhushan Raju M.D., D.M., Diplomate of National Board, is a nephrologist from Telangana, India. He is currently Senior professor and Unit head, Dept of Nephrology, Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences Panjagutta, Hyderabad. Which is one of the largest Nephrology teaching Department in India having ten DM seats. He is one of the principal investigators of CKD task force by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to evaluate the prevalence of CKD in adult urban population in India. He is currently an associate editor of Indian Journal of Nephrology, Indian Journal of Organ Transplantation and Frontiers in Medicine. He is a popular advocator of Public Health and early detection of non-communicable disease. He frequency writes editorials in various Regional and National News papers about quality of care, public health, health care systems
Felicity Anne Goodyear-Smith is a medical doctor, academic, and public health advocate from New Zealand. She is Academic Head of Department & Goodfellow Postgraduate Chair of General Practice & Primary Health Care in the Faculty of Medical and Health Science at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Suresh Samuel David is an Indian physician specializing in emergency medicine. The first Indian physician to be formally trained in emergency medicine, David pioneered the practice of emergency medicine in India and is credited with founding the department of emergency medicine at Christian Medical College, Vellore. He is the first person to hold the position of a professor in the discipline of Emergency Medicine in India.
Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana is a national public health insurance scheme of the Government of India that aims to provide free access to health insurance coverage for low income earners in the country. Roughly, the bottom 50% of the country qualifies for this scheme. People using the program access their own primary care services from a family doctor and when anyone needs additional care, PM-JAY provides free secondary health care for those needing specialist treatment and tertiary health care for those requiring hospitalization.
Violence against healthcare professional has occurred in the form of physical violence, verbal abuse, aggressive gestures, blackmail, and cyber-bullying. Violence against doctors has been observed in the United States, Australia, India, China, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and others.
Mhoira E.H. LengFRSE MBChB MRCP(UK) FRCP(Ed and Glas) is one of the first Scottish specialists in palliative care, who has developed the palliative care services internationally, working in Eastern Europe, India and Africa and advises international institutions and agencies on palliative care in the developing world. In 2021, Leng was admitted as one of the new female Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Doctory or daktari is a referral term for practising modern medicine arising in the Indian subcontinent during colonialism. The concept, has been framed by historical sociologist Neshat Quaiser and is now part of the social history of South Asian medicine & health and colonial studies.
S. Amin Tabish is an Indian medical scientist, physician, author poet, holding a Royal College of Physicians (London), American College of Physicians and New York Academy of Sciences Fellowships and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bristol. Tabish has worked on University Planning, Medical Education, Scientific Research, and Healthcare Administration. He has authored over 500 scientific research publications and sixteen books. Tabish has been Editor for medical journals and won awards for his contributions to healthcare, higher education, and scientific research.
