Family medicine in perspective.

Family medicine is part of the process by which medicine adjusts itself to the changing needs of society. Family physicians have in common the fact that they obtain fulfillment from personal relations more than from the technical aspects of medicine. Their commitment is to a group of people more than to a body of knowledge. Their experience gives them a distinctive perspective of illness that includes its personal and social context. Medical knowledge includes information, skill and insight. Medical education has tended to emphasize the former: to concentrate on foreground rather than background. In the training of family physicians the education setting and the role of instructors are of crucial importance.