I welcome Dr Dixon-Warren into the discussion. His point that “service must be determined by the needs of the patient” confirms the need for the family doctor, as the primary access to the health system for most Canadians, to be a generalist.
I was told that a senior member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada recently suggested to a group of family medicine residents that if family medicine was now a specialty we could join the Royal College. The residents reacted negatively. In supporting family physicians as specialists, why were they so surprised?
I have also watched a colleague, previously supportive of the view that we should remain generalists, become persuaded by the College of Family Physicians of Canada’s leaders that this debate was just a semantic one. When they say it isn’t about the money, it’s about the money. When they say it isn’t about what words mean, it’s about what words mean.
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