Fundamentals of Family Medicine

Presents the medical student and practitioner with common clinical problems of family practice, placing special emphasis on those problems most common in the office setting. This book reviews topics such as pregnancy, labor and delivery, common problems of the elderly, headache, hypertension, urinary tract infections, osteoarthritis, and HIV. Fundamentals of Family Medicine, Third Edition, describes the current approach to common problems in family practice. The book tells how family physicians provide high-quality, comprehensive, and ongoing health care for patients and families, based on current evidence and time-tested methods in clinical practice.Clinical scenarios that include case studies and questions for group discussion reinforce the book's clinical topics. The clinical scenarios all concern members of the Nelson family- a multigenerational extended family whose members visit the family physician with a variety of health concerns and whose dynamics evolve from chapter to chapter. The discussion questions allow the group to consider both the biomedical and psychosocial aspects of problems such as headache, obstructive airway disease, diabetes mellitus, athletic injuries, domestic violence, care of the dying patient, and the family physicians's role in dealing with terrorist events. The book is intended to be a reference source for the care of diseases family physicians are likely to see and as the course textbook for medical students in family medicine clerkships in medical school. This book will help health professionals provide up-to-date care for their patients, and will allow students to view clinical issues through the eyes of the family physician.Fundamentals of Family Medicine, Third Edition, ideally is used as a companion to Family Medicine: Principles and Practice, Sixth Edition, edited by Robert B. Taylor et al.

This book is intended as an introduction to family medicine and to the behaviors, concepts, and skills upon which the clinical practice of the discipline is based. The chapters that follow will provide a foundation for the student during the pre-doctoral years, a base upon which he or she can build during residency training and practice. Fundamentals of Family Medicine presents Part I (the first 36 chapters) of Family Medicine: Principles and Practice. Because it is intended that the student will eventually move from use of this extracted material to the full textbook, the preface to the comprehensive edition has been included and cross-references to later chapters have been retained. Why publish a student edition? Medical students in various schools partici pate in courses covering a wide range of topics including communication skills, family dynamics, medical ethics, human sexuality, disease prevention, aging and death. Departments of family medicine generally assume a leadership role in presentation of such courses, and this book is intended to integrate these eclectic topics into a single textbook.