Why you should have family doctor
Most people in this country do not have family doctors and only present in hospitals when they fall ill or seek the services of a specialist in which ever area they feel pains. However, medical experts have said that one very key way to stay healthy is to have a family physician also known as family doctor.
They say family physicians provide comprehensive and preventive care and that most cases of late diagnosis of diseases and undue stress and waste of money would have been avoided if they had their own family physicians keeping tab on their health and managing them.
A Consultant Family Physician, University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, (UATH), Dr Haruna Abubakar said the advantage of the training of family physicians encompasses from cradle right to old age. “So whatever the challenges are, a family physician will be the first person to look and assess and treat. And if necessary to refer to the appropriate specialty if the patient requires specialised care. So facilities and individuals should endeavor to have a family physician to take care of them.”
Family physicians study a branch of medicine called family medicine and are trained to provide care for individuals and families from child with up to their old age.
Family physicians provide first contact, comprehensive, coordinated and continued patient–centred care irrespective of disease entity, gender or age says Dr Oluwagbenga Ogunfowokan.
“They provide a coordinated care to make sure that if there is any other aspect of your disease condition that you may need to see another specialist to take care of, they can champion and co-ordinate that. They provide a continued care, from the time somebody is born to the time the person drops dead,” he said.
Dr Musa Dankyau said the family physician provides personalised care, and is in a good position to know the best time for the patient to see a specialist.
He said a if a patient with stones for example has a kidney family physician, the physician knows the kind of treatment available, including non-surgical ones, what type of surgeon it will require and institution in the country to refer the person to so that the individual will be spared a lot of money and stress. “If you have a doctor who has been managing you over the years, you are more likely to believe that person for advise and in the context of the family.
People wait to be sick before going to the hospital but the family physician helps people prevent the disease, and detect it at a very early stage, when it can be nipped in the bud,” said Dr Dankyau who is also the Acting President, Society of Family Physicians of Nigeria (SOFPON).
Explaining the concept of family medicine, Dr Udofia said more than 80% of illnesses in the country can be handled without one being a core specialist like cardiologist, or gyneacologist to mention a few.
“Family physicians do not just treat diseases, they treat you as a person, and in the context to your family and other things around , because if you have malaria, for instance, that malaria must have affected how you take care of your family, business and it may lead to hospitalisation. If you are a wife, it may affect your domestic chores and other members of the family. So a family physician takes all these into consideration, and what may not seem important to other people,” Udofia said.
He said however that this does not mean they are specialists in all diseases. “We are not specialists of all the specialties, because people think that once you are a family physician, you treat everything. No, we are not surgeons , gynecologists or opthamologists . But we can treat the basic things and know when to send our patients to specialists.
Our doctors are trained to take care of those primary activities and at the point they know you need specialist care, they will send you to that area. And not just sending you there, they are there waiting so that we continue the care,” he said.
How can one get a family doctor? Dr Dankyau said when people get to a health facility, they should ask for a family physician or ask the doctor they meet if he or she is a family physician, adding “If they are and they are trained for it, the answer will be positive. If they are not, hopefully they will be able to send you to see one. A number of health facilities have a department of family medicine. They are also usually the first point of call in the general out patient department. It will be easy to identify them for that purpose.”
People wait to be sick before going to the hospital but the family physician helps people prevent the disease , and detect it at a very early stage when it can be nipped in the bud