Family medicine is an independent academic discipline and specialty of medical science. Family medicine developed as a counterculture in response to rapid fragmentation of medical care into specialty and sub specialty care in the much of the developed world during post second world war period. The concept evolved as a concept of medical care to cater to the growing demand of the people for personalized, continued and comprehensive care.
Family medicine (FM) is a medical speciality devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages and provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, disease 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.
While family medicine evolved since 1950s and 1960s in USA and UK to its present form today, it gaining rapid momentum in the middle east, Africa, Latin America and South Asia during recent decades. In India there is a growing recognition and value for family medicine. It has been realized that competent primary care physicians form the back bone of health care delivery system and could play a vital role in fulfilling the human resource requirement of National Rural Health Mission NRHM -(gradually evolving into the National Health Mission – NHM ).