Challenges in family medicine.

Family medicine has matured over the last 30 years. It has become a discipline but acceptance as a specialty is still not universal. It needs to pay attention to developing intellectual vigour and capacity building to meet peoples' needs. Opportunities to do so abound, namely in preventive care, geriatric care and care of chronic diseases. Future challenges lie in capacity building in practice, teaching and research. The setting up of a vocational register for trained family physicians and charging an adequate fee are important mechanisms to improve its image.