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.