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Career Description

Physicians who diagnose, treat, and help prevent diseases and injuries that commonly occur in the general population. May refer patients to specialists when needed for further diagnosis or treatment.

What Job Titles Family Medicine Physicians Might Have

• Board Certified Family Physician
• Family Medicine Physician
• Family Physician
• Family Practice Medical Doctor (FP MD)
• Family Practice Physician
• Family Practitioner
• Medical Doctor (MD)
• Medical Staff Physician
• Physician
• Primary Care Physician

What Family Medicine Physicians Do

• Prescribe or administer treatment, therapy, medication, vaccination, and other specialized medical care to treat or prevent illness, disease, or injury.
• Order, perform, and interpret tests and analyze records, reports, and examination information to diagnose patients' condition.
• Collect, record, and maintain patient information, such as medical history, reports, or examination results.
• Monitor patients' conditions and progress and reevaluate treatments as necessary.
• Explain procedures and discuss test results or prescribed treatments with patients.
• Advise patients and community members concerning diet, activity, hygiene, and disease prevention.
• Refer patients to medical specialists or other practitioners when necessary.
• Coordinate work with nurses, social workers, rehabilitation therapists, pharmacists, psychologists, and other health care providers.
• Direct and coordinate activities of nurses, students, assistants, specialists, therapists, and other medical staff.
• Plan, implement, or administer health programs or standards in hospitals, businesses, or communities for prevention or treatment of injury or illness.
• Deliver babies.
• Operate on patients to remove, repair, or improve functioning of diseased or injured body parts and systems.
• Train residents, medical students, and other health care professionals.
• Prepare government or organizational reports which include birth, death, and disease statistics, workforce evaluations, or medical status of individuals.

What Family Medicine Physicians Should Be Good At

• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Flexibility of Closure - The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).

What Family Medicine Physicians Should Be Interested In

• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
• Social - Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
• Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

What Family Medicine Physicians Need to Learn

• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Chemistry - Knowledge of the chemical composition, structure, and properties of substances and of the chemical processes and transformations that they undergo. This includes uses of chemicals and their interactions, danger signs, production techniques, and disposal methods.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Sociology and Anthropology - Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.