President Message
Healthcare in India which used to run on a strong and steady family practice has drifted to one based on specialist and super-specialist service over the past few decades. 50 years ago every family, area or village had a family doctor who was a friend, philosopher, protector and guide to the community! In the current era every young doctor wants to become an “organ specialist” and every patient wants to be treated by the “famous specialist” in that field for even the mildest symptoms like headache, abdomen pain, diabetes etc. This system based care has eventually made healthcare unaffordable for the poor and middle class. The number of new five star hospitals and labs springing up in every specialty; be it diabetes, oncology (cancer care), gastroenterology, cardiology and varied fields- has outnumbered the humble general hospitals. In spite of the availability of the best technologies, trust and personalized care is increasingly noted to be missing in the absence of well-trained and trusted family physicians. Additionally, increasing reports of violence against doctors are symptomatic of the erosion of societal trust in the doctor-patient relationship and increasing fragmentation of care due an imbalanced emphasis on tertiary/specialty care without due attention to primary care and health equity. As traditional family doctors disappear from society, people have often a compulsion to visit large crowded public hospitals or unaffordable corporate/private hospitals for their basic medical needs. With health care costs rapidly spiraling up, there has been growing discomfort among people of India.
What makes your family doctor different?
The basis of family practice is relationship based care that is continuous in both illness and wellness. Your family physician can guide you even when you and your family are apparently normal with person centered and person focused care.
The goal of a family physician is to provide contextual care that takes into account the social, economic, and cultural needs of patient with their families. They understand you; know well about your background, requisites, and provide tailored solutions for most of your problems.
Family practice aims to deliver comprehensive care by catering to the whole person- preventive, health promotive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative needs. Your doctor can holistically treat you from “womb to tomb” as well as provide first care contact to all members of the family regardless of the age, sex, organ involved and health issue. (Including mental health). Home care and transitional care (between hospital and home) are also offered by the skilled family physicians of the modern era.
Family physicians play a crucial role in delivering coordinated care by helping patients and families navigate the complex (and often impersonal, unequal and costly) healthcare system. Your doctor can coordinate with specialists if need arises and help administer advanced
treatment avoiding cumbersome visits to far away facilities.
The current COVID pandemic too has proven that there is no better person than your family doctor to stand by you in these tough and trying
times giving you the best possible advice on prevention, containment, and treatment. Community health is the need of the hour and a well trained and expert family practitioner can be the core of it. The healthcare expenditure of the country can also be minimized if most disease conditions are prevented and treated at the grass root level, i.e., clinics and primary healthcare centers. It is also possible to have fewer intensive care admissions by early diagnosis and treatment, along with adequate preventive measures for community spread. Let us strive to have more primary health care centers in our country than more intensive care units and cardio-diabetic centers.
At AFPI – we work towards this goal; trying to inculcate interest in family practice among the young medical undergraduates, training and orienting postgraduates towards latest evidence based medicine, creating standards of care in par with the world’s best practice methods and encouraging research in family practice. I invite all family practitioners to come and join this movement for a better, healthier and happier community.
Dr. Ramakrishna Prasad
President AFPI Karnataka.