Sports Medicine and the Family Physician

As family practitioners we are encouraged to move with the times in every aspect of medicine. We pride ourselves on having received good training to apply our knowledge in all fields of medicine. The preventative aspects have been adequately emphasized in medical schools in all departments. We must give the greatest thought to the preventative aspects of sports medicine and to seek knowledge in this science that many of us were unable to or did not receive in our earlier training.     

The Family Physician and the Adolescent

The family physician has a very important role to play in helping the adolescent on his way to maturity, which is often a very rocky path but once successfully completed is most rewarding for both physician and patient. The three things which I feel are of paramount importance to the family physician are: 1) to be sensitive to the unspoken fears and guilts and fantasies which are very powerful in the adolescent, 2) to be aware of his background and family life situation that one may understand his communication at all levels without barriers and inhibitions, and 3) the most important, to be non-judgemental, for the moment that a physician becomes judgemental with today's adolescent he really turns them off.     

Family Therapy and the Family Physician

The purpose of this research paper is to look at family therapy as a technique for dealing with emotional problems in family medicine. It consisted of a non-randomized cohort study utilizing the patients at McMaster University Clinic. There were 42 families involved in the study group and they were matched with a control group. The results indicated that patients treated by means of family therapy placed 50 percent fewer demands on the physician and clinic than patients in the control groups treated with medication and/or psychotherapy. It also revealed little difference in the mix of complaints and diagnoses before and after family therapy.     

The Diabetic Camper and the Family Physician

This article contains some suggestions for the family physician who has juvenile diabetic patients going to summer camp. The main aim is to lessen the effort needed to rebalance a child when he or she returns from camp.     

The Family Physician in The Emergency Department

The possible future role of the family physician in the emergency room is discussed in the light of the rapidly changing system of delivery of emergency medical services and the establishment of a specialty of emergency medicine. It is pointed out that the family physician will play a most important role in smaller emergency rooms into the indefinite future. His role in larger teaching emergency departments is more problematic. Some aspects of difficulties are mentioned. A possible common first year of residency training between emergency medicine and family medicine is postulated.