THE TROUBLE WITH FAMILY MEDICINE

Background. The trouble with family medicine is that the perceptual fr amework it uses to view the phenomena of health and illness is at vari ance with the frameworks traditionally used by medicine generally. Thi s creates difficulties in communication between those in family medici ne and those in other disciplines, and sometimes leads to misunderstan ding of the nature of the discipline of family medicine and its place in the health care system. Those who practise family medicine need to be 'multilingual', able to understand and speak the language and use t he metaphors of family medicine, yet equally able to use the language and metaphors of other disciplines. Objectives. This paper, which begi ns with a clinical scenario, reviews the contemporary biomedical parad igm, proposes an alternative, and examines the conceptual frameworks w hich underpin the discipline of family medicine.