What makes Family Medicine different?

Family Medicine stresses the biopsychosocial model of medicine and the value of longitudinal care.  We approach the patient as a person with a disease, not a disease afflicting a person.  Family doctors feel it is essential to good care to take the patient’s life and family circumstances into account when planning a treatment plan or health maintenance plan.  We also feel that caring for patients over many years is invaluable.  The doctor-patient relationship or doctor-family relationship is therapeutic in its own right.  When we ask students what differences they see between Family Medicine and other primary care, they have difficulty verbalizing the difference but note there clearly is one.  It is the manner of approach to patients and disease and the doctor-patient relationship that really stands out to students.