[Short course for primary physicians care].

This department of family medicine has been challenged with helping a group of Russian immigrant physicians find places in primary care clinics, quickly and at minimal expense. A 3-month course was set up based on the Family Practice Residency Syllabus and the SFATAM approach, led by teachers and tutors from our department. 30 newly immigrated Russian physicians participated. The course included: lectures and exercises in treatment and communication with patients with a variety of common medical problems in the primary care setting; improvement of fluency in Hebrew relevant to the work setting; and information on the function of primary care and professional clinics. Before-and-after questionnaires evaluating optimal use of a 10- minute meeting with a client presenting with headache were administered. The data showed that the physicians had learned to use more psychosocial diagnostic question and more psychosocial interventions. There was a cleared trend toward greater awareness of the patient's environment, his family, social connections and work. There was no change in biomedical inquiry and interventions but a clear trend to a decrease in recommendations for tests and in referrals. The authors recommend the following didactic tools: adopting a biopsychosocial attitude, active participation of students in the learning situation, working in small groups, use of simulations and video clips, and acquiring basic communication experience.

SFAT-AM: short family therapy in ambulatory medicine. Treatment approach in 10-15 minute encounters.

The question of the possibilities latent within an appointment lasting on average only 10-15 minutes, under the pressures of a heavy workload in a public clinic, has occupied the authors for three years. SFAT-AM: Short Family Therapy in Ambulatory Medicine, has been developed with aim of offering solutions to this question. The theoretical background is taken from family medicine with a biopsychosocial (b.p.s.) systems approach. The authors formulated series of basic doctor-patient encounters which last on average 10-15 minutes. The basic encounter is a kind of didactic checklist model which presents to the doctor possibilities latent within. Emphasis is placed on the art of treatment and the meeting itself as therapeutic. During the meeting, patient's satisfaction, psychosocial information and the doctor's inner voice help the participants adjust to each other and move from stage to stage. The approach also relates to the possibility of joint work together with colleagues or with members of different teams in the clinic. The doctor makes use of communication techniques and reaches a b.p.s. diagnosis which will be the basis for suggesting a treatment. The presented model was tried by the authors and by trainees as part of a specialization course in family medicine. The trainees received between 20 and 70 academic hours of instruction. From the doctors' report it can be seen that SFAT-AM can be used in a primary clinic. Future research should give more specific answers to questions about the model's desirability, cost-efficiency, and job satisfaction. (Doctors will be referred to in the male gender throughout the article).