Family medicine and psychosocial knowledge: How many hats can the family doctor wear?

Abstract

The paper examines the impact of teaching family physicians psychosocial skills and knowledge during their residency training in family medicine. The idea put forth by the family practice profession that family physicians are trained to treat their patients' biological, as well as psychosocial problems, is important to the social work profession since social workers have had primary responsibility in treating patients' psychosocial problems in the health care arena in the United States from 1904 until now. In order to learn about the effect of adding psychosocial knowledge to the family practitioner's training curricula, the author conducted an exploratory and comparative study to see if family practitioners had any more psychosocial knowledge than other primary care physicians. No significant differences were found. Implications of the study for family medicine and social work, primary health care, and social/health policy are discussed.family practice education psychosocial knowledge social work primary care