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- Page navigation anchor for Unrealistic ExpectationsUnrealistic ExpectationsShow More
Thank you for writing the article "Who has time for family medicine?" All too often I read articles detailing how primary care practitioners are not doing enough to treat patients with diabetes, hypertension or other chronic diseases to target. Every article on domestic abuse, depression, suicide, chronic pain etc... concludes that primary care practitioners need more education so that we can screen for these conditions and...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Sharing the loadSharing the loadShow More
Family practitioners are "under the load" because we have accepted the responsibility of day-to-day care. A recent specialist response is typical. An invasive cardiologist, after concluding an angiogram refused to discuss the patient's echocardiogram results, claiming "I'm just the plumbing guy! See your doctor for those results."
As long as specialists limit their practices to more narrow fields for professi...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Like holding a wolf by the earsLike holding a wolf by the earsShow More
Thank you to Drs. Eaton and Springate for their rapid responses to my recent commentary.
I agree with Dr. Springate that yet another area in which the whole process and thinking about guidelines needs to develop is in ensuring that patient ideas and preferences about their care are integrated more thoroughly. I did comment on that in the article, but given the constraints of the Commentary format did not develop...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Preventive GuidelinesPreventive GuidelinesShow More
You tell 'em Pimlott! The only thing preventive care has done for me is to engender guilt every time one of my patients gets sick. We family physicians spend hours a day counselling patients on osteoporosis and prostate cancer, while 80 year old women with progressive heart failure get rushed to an emergency department because we're too busy to make the preventive house call. Ditto for our patients with cancer, dementia a...
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Patient friendly CPGsPatient friendly CPGsShow More
Incorporating more primary care practitioners in the formation of CPGs would be a good start. Involving a significant number of patients would be a better finish. The patient remains the non-included member of the oft- heralded "health care team", yet no one would deny that patients themselves will need to take directing roles in their own care for chronic and preventive issues. They are already doing it, reading food...
Competing Interests: None declared.