Primary care orientation of family practice in the Philippines: Cross-sectional study in pilot sites

Background@#Universal Health Care law calls for strong primary care where essential services are responsive to the health needs of individuals, families, and communities. Similar to other countries, family physicians are the biggest workforce in primary care, but little is known about the kind of care that they provide. This study aimed to determine the process of care rendered by family physicians in the country to assess their readiness in implementing the standards of primary care services according to the Universal Health Care law.@*Methods@#Cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire that includes 6 key elements of UHC was conducted to family physicians participating in the pilot project of the Philippine Academy of Family Physicians practice networks. Process of care is part of the big data collected in the survey. The process of care variables was analyzed using descriptive statistics.@*Results@#There were 195 family physicians who completed the survey. There were about 14.87% from Luzon, 18.46% from NCR, 27.18% from the Visayas, and 39.49% from Mindanao. Overall, the participants provide comprehensive, coordinated, and continuing care. Few utilized electronic medical records (9%). Preventive services provided are immunization (82.05%), alcohol and smoking cessation (77.44%), nutrition advice (76.92%), and exercise prescription (73.33%). @*Conclusion@#Family physicians in the pilot sites provide comprehensive, coordinated, and continuing care. The majority also offer common preventive services such as immunization, smoking cessation, nutrition advice, and exercise prescription. Some process needed for UHC needs improvement such as the use of EMR and quality assurance activities.

Medical students career choices and perceptions in family medicine and primary care

Background@#Maldistribution and dearth of primary care practitioners is a continuing health human resource problem of many countries particularly in developing countries like the Philippines. The call to strengthen primary care for better health outcomes is a battle-cry that has never been resolved due to lack of physicians, trained and untrained, serving the rural areas. Family physicians are primarily the workforce in primary care settings but few medical graduates pursue this kind of career track. This study aimed to describe the career choices of medical students and factors that influenced them including their perspectives of family medicine as career choice.@*Methods@#On-line survey using google form was used to reach a total of 1800 medical students from 41 medical schools across the country in November 2016. Purposive sampling was done to allocate at least 40 students per school coordinated through the APMC Student Network representatives. They were sent with a link of the pre-validated questionnaire on career choices after medical school and reasons influencing their career choices based from prior studies. @*Results@#Of the 1,800 students, 1010 (81%) completed the questionnaire. Majority opted residency training (92%) after graduation and few pursue rural health practice (14%). Family medicine ranked 10th as first choice for training with IM and surgery consistently the top choices regardless if it is the first, second or third choice. Family medical needs influenced these choices. Family medicine was considered by majority as the primary care providers (94.1%) but lack of emphasis on it in their curriculum was experienced by most. @*Conclusion@#Most of the medical students want to pursue residency training in internal medicine and surgery while few in family medicine. Their choice of training is influenced by medical needs of the family. Family medicine as primary care provider was recognized but most experienced of lack emphasis in their medical curriculum.