Funciones del medico en la atencion primaria de salud / Physician's role in primary health care

ABSTRACT

This article puts forward a series of considerations on primary health care and on how the physician should be trained to perform services for the patient, the family and the community at large in the framework of such care. The author notes that, as a result of the Declaration of Alma-Ata, primary health care imposes new responsibilities on the physician, who is now called upon to provied ongoing, comprehensive services with an approach that sees not only the physical, but also the psychological and social conditions that affect the state of health. In primary health care the physician also has to be trained to minister to the individual both in sickness and in health and to inform the community of what it needs to know in the area of health education, in addition to taking his traditional preventive and curative measures. In other words, the physician must wear the hats of the clinician, organizer, supervisor and teacher, and his training must be designed to enable him to acquire the knowledge, abilities and skills that he needs to play all these roles satisfactorily. The writer expresses the hope that health conditions will improve, particularly in the developing countries, if every individual, every community, and every health team, the physician included, accepts the responsibilities that devolve upon each of them in primary health care. (AU)