One of the traditional goals of internist geriatricians and of family physicians providing care for elderly patients has been to review and reduce the amount of medication patients are taking. This can be one of the great pleasures of geriatric medicine, with obvious and proven benefits for older patients. Polypharmacy can be defined as the concomitant use of many medications. The more medicati...

Most family physicians regularly dispense health advice to their patients: Stop smoking. Exercise. Eat a healthy diet. This advice-giving is part of their role or, to put it more elegantly, it is part of the professional competencies that all family physicians must have. How could it be otherwise? How could we not recommend that an obese patient lose weight or that a patient with chronic bronch...

This report helps characterize fracture management by family physicians. The findings suggest that family physicians can care for a broad range of acute fractures with healing times at least comparable with the standard of care described by orthopedists. A prospective trial would be necessary to assess fully clinical outcomes resulting from specific fracture management. That distal extremity fr...

Imust respond to the letter by Dr Alan Katz and his effusive support of Dr Ian McWhinney who, in his editorial, posited that those who have restricted their practices in some way should no longer call themselves family physicians. I believe that the attitudes expressed by the writers are both divisive and, in a way, elitist. I speak as a relatively recent family practice graduate who, for now a...

PURPOSE This study was conducted to document current immunization practices by family physicians. METHODS In 2008 the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) conducted a survey among a random sample of 2,000 of its members who reported spending 80% or more of their time in direct patient care. The survey consisted of questions regarding the demographics of the practice, vaccines that are...