Good to hear that you are considering family medicine. I completed a family medicine residency in 2002. My reasons for choosing family medicine:
1. The biggest reason is that no other specialty gives you such an opportunity to become an important part of your patients' lives over an extended period of time and in many cases to develop authentic and close relationships with them. No other specialty enables that kind of intimacy. Particularly if you choose to deliver babies, you have a chance to take care of a mother throughout her pregnancies, deliver the babies, and then continue to care for the whole family as the kids grow up. It's really a fantastic opportunity to make a difference in people's lives. One fellow family medicine resident had such a strong relationship with a family in her panel that they named their daughter after her.
2. No other specialty gives you as much freedom to choose how you want to practice. As a family physician, you can choose to practice as a hospitalist, deliver babies, do rural full-spectrum medicine, urgent care, etc. And you have the freedom to change how you practice over time. For instance, if you decide you want to spend more time with your own family, you can alter your style of practice to reflect that. Few other specialties offer that kind of freedom.
3. I'm a strong proponent of full spectrum family medicine as a form of primary care that should serve as the foundation for our our currently bloated and overspecialized health care system. I believe that a system based around generalists who are trained to perform a wide variety of evidence-based comprehensive care, including procedures, is in the best interests of patients. As a nation over 15 trillion dollars in debt with our health care system bigger than just about every other economy in the world, we will be forced to head away from our current specialty-focused model and towards one centered around primary care. Family physicians will continue to be at the heart of this transformation.
4. I really enjoy the day-to-day lifestyle of full spectrum family medicne. I like doing inpatient care, procedures, and delivering babies. Clinic is usually okay but I'm not interested in spending all my time in the clinic. Some students have the misconception that family physicians spend all their time in the clinic. Some do, but many more are like me and enjoy doing a lot of other things in addition to spending time in the clinic.
5. I've spent the last nine years as a physican in the military where family physicians play a big role not only in taking care of troops but also commanding clinics and hospitals and doing all kinds of other things. I started out as a medic years ago and am most interested in operational medicine (serving alongside combat troops and accompanying them on exercises and into battle if necessary). As a family physician, I've been able to spend a lot of time in an operational position. Of course, the military also helps out in paying back loans and gives physicians quite a few generous bonuses. They also send you to a lot of schools, both clinical and non-clinical. I'm currently a student for a year at Intermediate Level Education, where the army trains its mid-level officers in operations, strategy and tactics.
6. I also have a passion for working with underserved populations and global health, both of which are very compatible with family medicine.
7. Lastly, as a medical student in a typical medical center dominated by specialists and sub-specialists, you will be subject to a steady undertone of sometimes subtle, other times blatant, bias against family medicne and primary care along with the idea that only a fool would choose not to specialize and that primary care is for idealists and lower tier students. Do your best to ignore it. Once you get out into the community, the family physician has as much respect as any other physican, and a good one is loved by his patients, particularly the hard-working, salt of the earth folks who are the backbone of our country.
LTC Mike Tarpey
ILE Class 12-01
