Family Practice Jobs

Four years of college, followed by four years of medical school and then three years of residency at a hospital. Before starting residency, the future Family Practice Physician usually chooses whether he/she will ultimately wish to work in an urban setting or in the broader community. This choice makes a difference in where they will receive their residency and where that residency is focused.

In order to be a successful Family Practice Physician the student must be dedicated to a life that will be filled with continuing education. Residency traditionally consists of extremely long hours varied patients to care for. Since Family Practice is usually centered around patients who are ambulatory, residents are usually assigned a certain number of patients which often increased over the three years. Each resident is usually assigned a few Obstetrical patients and as soon as one delivers, they get a new patient to follow.

Residents see patients during clinic hours and are responsible for completing charts and discussing patients and their diagnosis with their preceptor. This is their time to perfect the skills that they learned during medical school and prepare for a position in a community or hospital setting after graduation.

A typical residency program has courses over a three year period. During the first year the resident will spend from two weeks to several months in Inpatient services, Internal medicine, Obstetrics, Gynecology, surgery, Neurology and working the ward on call taking patient histories doing physicals, charting, daily progress notes and attending rounds.

The second year continues on with Orthopedics, Psychiatry, Community Medicine, Dermatology, Emergency Room Pediatrics, Medical Intensive Care, Obstetrics, Cardiology and Geriatrics. Community medicine is usually where the new physician is able to gain valuable experience through home visits. There is usually a project that is required during this section.

The third year of residency gets very intense. The young physician experiences rotations through outpatient Pediatrics, Urology, Office Surgery, Inpatient Family Medicine, Sports Medicine and three electives where they might choose Neurology, Endocrinology, Women's Health, Radiology, Hyperbaric Medicine, ER, and Nephrology to name a few of the choices that might be available.

The Family Practice Physician who has completed his residency is supremely qualified to care for urban communities that are very underserved. They are graduates of high-quality, primary care education that that has emphasized how the difference in social, economic and cultural diversity effect health and illness. One of the great joys of being a Family Practice Physician is that they are able to provide personalized care to not only the patient, but to the entire family. In the end, the most successful family physician will be the one who can apply his medical knowledge with compassion, warmth and sincerity so that he inspires trust in his patients.

There is a great need in both the urban community as well as in the suburban and rural community for knowledgeable Family Practice Physicians who are aware of the needs of their community and have a strong desire to treat the whole family, not just the one member who happens to be ill.

To learn more about careers in family practice visit the family practice jobs page for more information and how to apply for a job.