Coping with family medicine put-downs

Abstract

Family doctors are often devalued in our complex and specialised world. Generalism is often discounted whilst specialisation is highlyvalued. Even though family doctors are now listed in the specialist register we are still a long way in our endeavour to establish Family Medicine in its rightful place in the Maltese society. Family doctors have an important role to play in opposing this unhealthy competitiveness and systemic denigration of other practitioners. Family doctors are not alone in feeling disparaged, similar forces are affecting nurses, pharmacists and social workers. Family doctors can lead with an attitude that all disciplines in medicine have an important role and all health care providers should be partners with the patient at the centre of the group. Family medicine is being challenged with providing for the needs of individual patients within an environment undergoing dynamic epidemiological and demographic transitions. Primary medical care is being more and more strained by a widening socioeconomic disadvantage aging populations and re-emerging of old diseases.