Comparing The Scope Of Practice Between Family Physicians And General Practitioners

Objectives:

1. To assess how broad is the scope of practice among physicians of primary health care centers of Al-Khobar, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.

2. To identify what services are provided in the primary health centers.

3. Compare the scope of practice between family physicians and general practitioners.

Introduction:

“Primary care is often the initial point of access to the health care system”.(1) Patients seeking medical assistance visit their general practitioner first or family physician, which accordingly manages the patient's medical condition. The breadth of services that patients require may be comprehensive, as is the knowledge base needed to treat multiple, complex medical conditions.(1)

Family medicine/general practice remains

As Comprehensiveness remains one of the least studied functions of primary care.(11)

The aim of this study is to measure the scope of practice and what services do primary health care centers actually do.

Literature review:

Anastasia J. Coutinho, MD, MHS; Anneli Cochrane, MPH; Keith Stelter, MD, MMM; Robert L. Phillips Jr, MD, MSPH; Lars E. Peterson, MD, PhD (2015) a study in the US To compare intended scope of practice for American Board of Family Medicine initial certifiers at residency completion with self-reported actual scope of practice of recertifying family physicians. Using the Scope of Practice for Primary Care score (scope score).

It was concluded that family physicians taking ABFM examinations, graduating family m edicine residents reported an intention to provide a broader scope of practice than that reported by current practitioners. This pattern suggests that these differences are not generational, but whether they are due to limited practice support, employer constraints, or other causes remains to be

Results showed that geographic factors were the strongest determinants of scope of practice; physician-related factors, availability of health care resources to the main practice setting, and practice organization factors were weaker determinants.(13)

Erika Ringdahl, MD, John E. Delzell, Jr., MD, MSPH, and Robin L. Kruse, PhD (2006) a study in the University of Missouri, Columbia, to measure how practice patterns are changing. All graduates of the residency were surveyed in 1998, 2001, and 2004, asking about practice patterns.

Results showed fewer graduates care for patients in the hospital (71.3%, 1998; 56.5%, 2004), practice obstetrics (40.7%, 1998; 23.2%, 2004), or provide primary care for their patients in the emergency department (25.9%, 1998; 13.0%, 2004). They concluded that there was a decline in the proportion of graduates of this family medicine residency program performing procedures, obstetrics, intensive care unit care, or hospital