FP- A "fallback" from other fields

[La Fiera]

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A friend of mine is convinced that if you do a residency other than FP, you can always fall back on to family if you don't want to do what you were doing before. She says that you don't need to go back and do another FP residency.
I am convinced otherwise, can someone give me more info? If this is true, what other residencies can you do to then fallback on FP? 😱

 

[Seaglass]

To be board certified in family practice you need to complete a family practice residency. Time done in another residency doesn't count (except maybe a couple of months off intern year).

C

 

[gungho]

One could probably find a job working in a walk-in clinic seeing very simple stuff or prison or college campus dr., but you will probably not be able to get hospital privileges in FP w/o board certification except in rare circumstances.

 

[Pilot]

Technically, your friend would be doing "general practice", not Family Practice. FP is a specialty unto itself, and requires FP residency completion. Do GP's call themselves Family Practice physicians? Sure, and I have yet to hear of any legal ramifications incurred.

I got into a debate with an ER doc who now does general practice, although her script pads, office name, etc all identify her as a FP physician. She stated that she can call herself a FP doctor since has a practice similar to a residency trained FP physician. I asked if I would be considered equivalent to a Board Certified ER doc and could identify myself as such if I worked in ER's as a FP physician. Of course, her answer was no.

 

[pockey]

It really depends on what part of "family" medicine you go into. But to really do family medicine, you need 3 years of training. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant. And I would never have a family medicine doctor for myself that wasn't fully trained and board certified. Also, FP's are probably the best trained (along with EM) for urgent care type clinics. I know some internists that do urgent care, and I think it's wrong because they don't see peds during residency.

 

[deleted6669]

" I think it's wrong because they don't see peds during residency"

or ortho, or trauma, or ob or general surgery....
for the most part internists make lousy urgent care/EM providers........

 

[bustbones26]

well that all depends on your electives and program requirements, myself for example, if I were to persue a career in IM I probably would do an osteopathic internship for my first year and in that first year I would have to see peds, ortho, ob/gyn, ER, surgery.

Some programs in IM that I have looked into are now requiring residents to do womens health, maybe no OB, but yes, gyn. One program in particular that I looked at states that the "core" of their program requires every resident to do one ER month every year!! and definitely requires ortho!!. Some other programs in IM also offer a tract in womens health.

I do believe that internist are starting to realize their descrepencies in some areas and are now trying to compensate for everything but peds.

As far as "falling back" goes, I know that in most states, after you finish your internship you are "legally" allowed to do pretty much anything you want, well in the legal sense you are at least, but good luck trying to find a hospital that will give you the privleges to do some things that you desire, or finding insurance companies that will reimburse you.

Now if I may get philosophical, FP is a specialty that trains on how to manage primary care of patients "throughout their life cycle", yeah, well all know that in realilty that patients swtich doctors, etc etc , but really at the core of FP is the philosophy of seeing patients "throughout the lifecycle". To do this does take a person with a special personality, the "boards" realized years ago that yes anybody can call themselves a GP but to really do medicine "throughout the lifecycle" it does require specialty training thus FP residencies began.

In my opinion, and it is just my opinion, not a proven fact, I believe that the reason why FP and GP get so confused is because after FP training, many FP's take on a role as a GP, ie, they don't do OB, they don't do many office procedures, etc etc. I know there are people to the contrary but for the most part, this is what I have seen in the FP community.