Family medicine: A medical care alternative for Latin America

This paper presents the experience of a residency in family medicine organized 7 years ago by the medical school of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico. The residency aims to prepare physicians to provide primary health care. In efforts to teach graduate students the social as well as the biological causes of diseases most commonly reported at the primary care level, graduate students take courses in clinical disciplines, social and behavioral sciences and public health. In its training methodology the program combines teaching, service and research. By now, the department of family medicine has graduated five classes of specialists, all of whom are working in the field of family medicine at the primary level. This fact is particularly worth noticing in a country where there are thousands of unemployed/underemployed physicians. It is suggested that family physicians are satisfying an unmet medical demand of many thousands of Mexicans, and that the care provided by them is less expensive and of better quality than the same care provided by other specialists.