What is Primary Care ?
Primary care refers to the first point of contact for individuals within the healthcare system. The Front Line.
Primary care Doctors (PCPs) often looked at by their specialist peers as “Jack of all trades, a master of none.” That statement is often myopic intellectual territorial-ism. The silos of specialization often fail to recognize systems integration, while siloed pharmaceutical remedies have ignored cross system adverse outcomes. Understanding the whole person, physically, anatomically, and psycho-spiritually is imperative. Primary Care Doctors are the Quarterback between the Silos of health care.
Primary care is fundamental to health, as it's often linked to higher patient satisfaction. It's the foundation upon which effective healthcare delivery is built, emphasizing holistic and patient-centered approaches to health management.
Longitudinal continuity of care: Primary Care Doctors develop relationships. When this is done properly it gives the Primary Care Doctor an understanding of the multiple layers of a person's life that make up overall health.
Preventive Healthcare: Is accomplished through engaging the patient to take responsibility for monitoring their daily health, understanding what and why they are doing things. Learning a patient's patterns, and nudging changes in those patterns. Results in self-realized epiphanies that lay the foundation for lasting change. Successful Primary Care educates a patient by translating the complex into the understandable. Understanding how memory is formed, concepts are best presented using understandable analogies, allegories, and archetypes.
Types of Providers: Primary care can be provided by:
Family Physicians: Care for patients of all ages.
Internists (Internal Medicine Physicians): Focus on adult medicine.
Pediatricians: Specialize in the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents.
Geriatricians: Focus on the health care of elderly people.
Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants: Often work in primary care settings, providing many of the same services as physicians, without the experience Residency offers.