How many of us grew up with family docs?

[Melanie]

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As I get more into this whole family medicine thing, I'm finding out that a lot of people who are interested in going into family practice grew up with family docs as their PCPs. This was certainly the case for me! I was wondering how many of you all grew up with family docs and if you think that this has influenced your decision to at least think seriously about going into family practice. Thanks!

-Melanie 🙂

 

[skb21]

Yes. I was delivered by a family doctor and have always used family doctors. It's what I identified with as a child when someone would talk about being a doctor. I'm also from a small area that simply didn't have many specialists at all when I was younger. The hospital was staffed with 4-5 family doctors, 2 internal medicine doctors, and 2 general surgeons for the longest time. I don't even think they got an ob/gyn in till the mid-80s. For the longest time, all of the c-sections were done by the general surgeons.

That's what I grew up with, and that's probably why the two I'm looking at the most are family medicine and general surgery.

 

[Saluda]

Interesting thread.... I grew up being shuttled from clinic to clinic and HMO to wherever..... no real continuity of care for any of us because our family was working class and sometimes un-insured. I wish I had had a doctor who really knew who we all were, and I hope to be that for some community some day.

 

[realmdo]

I was born to a Family Doc and brought up by her. How about that:😍

 

[ramonaquimby]

what if i told you i didn't even know of family medicine until i got to medical school (3rd year to be exact)...how 'bout THAT?! insane.

but now i'm FM all the way! 🙂

 

[sophiejane]

Had a pediatrician until I was about 16 then only saw an OBGYN for annual exams after that. My parents might have seen an FP back then, but we certainly didn't have one doc for the whole family. Now my mom sees an internist and my dad an FP.

Never saw a family doc until I was almost 30!

Crazy.

 

[Doc Oc]

We didn't go to the doctor's when we were kids unless we were very sick for over a week, then we went to a walk-in clinic. We went to the county health department to get our shots, and to the walk-in clinic for school physicals. I didn't know that most people "have" A doctor that they see regularly until I was in college, but even then, I usually went to the campus clinic when I was sick. It wasn't until I was 20 and diagnosed with asthma that I was told to get a regular doctor. (I probably had asthma most of my life - good thing I never had an attack until I was older!)