TEXTBOOK OF FAMILY MEDICINE – Third Edition / الكتاب المدرسي لطب الأسرة – الطبعة الثالثة

TEXTBOOK OF FAMILY MEDICINE – Third Edition:

The profound changes now occurring in medicine can only be fully understood if they are viewed from the perspective of history.

There is nothing new about change: medicine has been changing constantly since its beginnings. Only the pace is different.

Medicine changes in response to many influences, some scientific and technological, some social.

Family medicine is only one of many new disciplines that have developed in the course of medical history.

New disciplines arise in a number of ways: some—such as surgery and obstetrics—have developed from ancient craft skills; some have grown up around new techniques, such as otolaryngology in the nineteenth century and anesthesiology in the twentieth; others have been formed because some area of need, such as child health, was being neglected by existing disciplines.

All these influences have played a part in the recent growth of family medicine.

Social changes, specialization, and a new pattern of illness have demanded a new type of physician; science has given us new insights into some old problems, and existing disciplines have tended to neglect the problems encountered in family practice.

New disciplines can begin in three ways: by transformation from an older discipline, de novo, or by fragmentation from a larger discipline. Family medicine has evolved from an older branch of medicine—general practice.

The relationship, however, is not a simple one; we will be returning to it later. Let us now look in more detail at some modern trends that have influenced the development of family medicine.